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Quest for God
a Poem by Swami Vivekananda
O'ver hill and dale and mountain range,
In temple, church, and mosque,
In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran
I had searched for Thee in vain.
Like a child in the wildest forest lost
I have cried and cried alone,
"Where art Thou gone, my God, my love?
The echo answered, "gone."
And days and nights and years then passed
A fire was in the brain,
I knew not when day changed in night
The heart seemed rent in twain.
I laid me down on Ganges's shore,
Exposed to sun and rain;
With burning tears I laid the dust
And wailed with waters' roar.
I called on all the holy names
Of every clime and creed.
"Show me the way, in mercy, ye
Great ones who have reached the goal."
Years then passed in bitter cry,
Each moment seemed an age,
Till one day midst my cries and groans
Some one seemed calling me.
A gentle soft and soothing voice
That said 'my son' 'my son',
That seemed to thrill in unison
With all the chords of my soul.
I stood on my feet and tried to find
The place the voice came from;
I searched and searched and turned to see
Round me, before, behind,
Again, again it seemed to speak
The voice divine to me.
In rapture all my soul was hushed,
Entranced, enthralled in bliss.......
What we aspire to achieve
Igniting the fire in you
Mind Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--- Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
- a poem by Rabindranath Tagore
What we believe in:
"Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship or psychic control, or philosophy, by one, or more or all of these -and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas; rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details."
- Swami Vivekananda
What we are
"Everyman is a doorway through which the infinite passes into the finite, through which God becomes man, through which the Universal becomes individual.
-Emerson
Our commitment
The days of dogmatic religions are on its way out. The science of spirituality has begun. The outer ceremonial of religions are not necessary any more for modern man, like a particular dress code, elaborate worshipping or marks on body. These formal documents will soon be redundant.
‘Each soul is potentially divine’, so says Swami Vivekananda. We, at this centre of learning and spiritual discipline, will try and help each individual to manifest his divinity through work, yogasana, pranayama, meditation, study and games. As all paths lead to the same goal, every individual will be free to nurture his/her spiritual progress in accordance with his/her inner spiritual urge. For this a basic thirst for spiritual living is a must.
The main purpose of divinepersons.com is to create an environment for spiritual and intellectual growth of individuals with physical emphasis through exercise and games. The teachings will be based on the lives and works of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Ma Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo & the Mother. Indian Culture, and other main civilizations of the world will also be taught. The medium of teaching will be in English.
A Board of Trustees will be responsible for running the Institute and to take important decisions. The day to day activities will be looked after by a whole time Executive Officer who will report the activities to the Board of Trustees once in a six months.
People having faith in Divine life will only be accepted.
There are and were many great men and women in this world. The proof is that since the advent of man on this planet, the humanity has progressed considerably. The power of goodness is more than the power of negative forces. The contribution of great people has been and is so enormous that in spite of certain weak links, the civilization of humanity is moving forward. For instance, the medical science, scientific discovery, spiritual realization, education, philosophy, sports, health and hygiene, communication, standard of living, all are progressing. There is no denying of the fact that today we live in a better world than our ancestors lived. Of course there many grey areas that need to taken care of before humanity can claim itself to be the best evolutionary species.
The credit goes to those great inventors, spiritual leaders, social revolutionaries, social reformers, political visionaries, statesmen of the past and the present. In this page, 'Lives of the Great' I will discuss about only three persons here. They are Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo. I have chosen these three personalities to focus on, given our aim and limited capacity of work. I do agree that they represent only a miniscule percentage of great people that the world has seen. In the context of India, being a country with spiritual ethos, they have influenced millions of lives.
I would feel very satisfied if this web site could reach out to those people who are seeking spiritual knowledge of India. My effort has been to share the spiritual wealth that these three leaders have been able to generate for the good of humanity.
So I appeal to all the scholars in East and West alike who have love and respect for this country to join in this effort. I leave the result in the hands of the Architect of the Universe.
The Author
The Great Ones
BHARATIYA INSTITUTE OF
HUMAN EXCELLENCE
Sisters and Brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. 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 am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in 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." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
- Address to the Parliament of Religions, at 4 P.M. Dated: Sept. 11, 1893. Chicago, USA
India of Swamiji's dream
Let Let new India arise out of the peasant's cottage, grasping the plough, out of the huts of fishermen, the cobbler and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer's shop, from beside the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emerge from the factory, from the marts and from markets. Let her emerge from the groves and forests, from the hills and mountains.”
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA AT THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGONS
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