There is a famous episode in the life of Vivekananda which illustrates with all its poignancy the love he had for the suffering humanity. Romain Rolland, the great French savant and an excellent example of “Gallic grace in intellectual culture”, in his Life of Vivekananda narrates it as follows:

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.

It is another matter if this Humanity “with a heart so unkind, more unkind than the winter wind” deserves this attention, particularly when the problem of pain and suffering has to be tackled at a much deeper level. But Vivekananda’s concern for daridrī nārāyaņa, the Beggar God, the Destitute, had such force and such intensity that it was “the only God” in whom he believed, “my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races”.

The beautiful episode of Girish Chandra Ghose, the renowned Bengali actor of the time who later turned towards Ramakrishna, is a moving example. Romain Rolland continues:

One day he came in while Vivekananda was discussing the most abstract philosophy with a disciple. Vivekananda broke off and said to him in a mockingly affectionate tone, “Well, Girish, you did not care to make a study of these things, but passed your days with your Krishnas and Vishnus.”

Girish replied: “Well, Naren, let me ask you one thing. Of Vedas and Vedanta you have read enough. But are there remedies prescribed in them for these wailings, these cries of hungry mouths, these abominable sins… and many other evils and miseries that one meets with every day? The mother of the house there, who at one time fed daily fifty mouths, has not the wherewithal to cook even for herself and her children for the last three days! The lady of such-and-such a family has been violated by the ruffians and tortured to death. The young widow of so-and-so has succumbed from causing abortion to hide her shame!... I ask you Naren, have you found in the Vedas any preventive for these evils?...

And as Girish continues in this vein of sharp irony, depicting the dark and dismal side of society, Vivekananda sat speechless and deeply moved. Thinking of the pain and misery of the world, tears came into his eyes and to hide his feelings he walked out of the room.

Girish said to the disciple, “Now, did you see with your own eyes what a large heart your Guru possesses? I do not esteem him with so much for being a scholar and intellectual giant, as for that large-heartedness which made him walk out shedding tears for the misery of mankind. As soon as he heard it, mark you, all his Vedas and Vedanta vanished out of sight as it were, all the learning and the scholarship that he was displaying a moment ago was cast aside and his whole being was filled to overflow with the milk of loving kindness. Your Swami is as much a Jnani and a Pandit as a lover of God and humanity.”

Vivekananda returned, and said to Sadananda that his heart was gnawing with pain at the poverty and distress of his countrymen, and exhorted him to do something by opening a small relief centre at least. And turning to Girish, he said: “Ah, Girish, the thought comes to that even if I have to undergo a thousand births to relieve the misery of the world, ay, even to remove the least pain from everyone, I shall cheerfully do it!”

A new turn in the Vedantic philosophy of life was taking place. Never in the Indian spirituality such ardency for the collective welfare of humanity, such sense of societal amelioration was witnessed in the long past. Vivekananda as a Vibhuti working in the enlarged Vedantic framework,—but without the element of the commiserative readiness of the Christian,—for the cause of the suffering mankind is a new beginning. Yet one wonders if the fundamental problem of the afflicted creature can really be tackled by such an approach. The cosmic evil is too deep to be uprooted, least by sympathy howsoever genuine and deep it be.

We could see how in response to the question from Savitri's mother Malawi Narad expatiates it in the second canto of the Book of Fate of Savitri.

Apropos of the collective welfare of humanity, never such sense of societal amelioration was witnessed in the long past, we may recall the Mother saying the following:

...in each world, in each being, in each thing, in each atom is the Divine Presence, and it is man's mission to manifest it.

About the Mother's inspiring phrase: "...and it is man's mission to manifest it," a question could be raised that, her position seems to be qualitatively different from Vivekananda's approach. It points to the more "proactive yoga" of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as a potential solution to the conundrum posed above regarding Vivekananda's approach.

Let us first see a few general things about the problem.

Firstly, Vivekananda’s Beggar God is, if we may say so, a modern combination of the Buddhistic Compassion and the Christian Love for mankind. But philanthropy or the service of humanity or charity or missionary engagements “which the mind of man substitutes for the deeper truth of works” cannot go deep enough. In one of his letters Sri Aurobindo writes: (p. 553)

…our attitude is that humanity cannot grow out of its limitations by the ordinary means adopted by the human mind, politics, social reform, philanthropy, etc.—these can only be temporary or local palliatives. The only true escape is a change of consciousness, a change into a greater, wider and purer way of being, and a life and action based upon that change. It is therefore to that that the energies must be turned, once the spiritual orientation is complete. This implies no contempt, but the preference of the only effective means over those which have been found ineffective.

Sri Aurbindo’s approach has been, true to his nature of work, to “bring the higher Consciousness down into the earth-consciousness and establish it there as a constant realised force.” Terms such as “service of mankind” are very modern and European in their connotation. Mahayana laid stress on compassion which should be contrasted with the proposition that this entire creation is a great family of God, vasudhaiva kutumbakam.

But Sri Aurobindo goes a step farther that, his Yoga is not for the sake of humanity: “Our yoga for the sake of the Divine” in which the “The Divine includes not only the supracosmic but the cosmic and the individual—not only Nirvana or the Beyond but Life and the All. It is that I stress everywhere.” (Letters on Yoga, p. 149)

In it "man's mission to manifest" the Divine Presence is pivotal. This goes very well with “our Yoga is [not for humanity but] for the Divine.” Man is the bridge, says the Mother elsewhere, linking God to this creation. In the Aitteraya Upanishad he is “well-fashioned” for the Gods to inhabit in him.

So it is not the suffering aspect of humanity, which is too well-known to us and about which nothing much in a fundamental way can be done, but the urge to exceed itself, to be the willing and worthy instrument of the Divine that is what really matters. That is the post-human destiny in its most positive and assertive character that we must cherish, for which we must be engaged in the “pro-active yoga”.

RY Deshpande