Vivekananda, torn between twenty contradictory demons—faith, science, art, all the passions of victory and action—kept in his feverish hands to the end the equal balance between the two poles: a burning love of the Absolute (the Adwaita) and the irresistible appeal of suffering Humanity. And what makes him so appealing to us is that at those times when equilibrium was no longer possible, and he had to make a choice, it was the latter that won the day: he sacrificed everything else to Pity, to “poor suffering Humanity,” as Beethoven, his great European brother said...   more »