Complete Works: Swami Vivekananda (9 Vols. Hard Back)

by Swami Vivekananda

A huge collection of the books, lectures, letters, poetry of Swami Vivekananda in 9 volumes in Hard Back edition.

About the Authour:

Swami Vivekananda is regarded in India as a patriot and saint. He came to the United States and spoke at the World's Parliament of Religion in Chicago.

After the Parliament, the Swami traveled throughout the United States and England lecturing and giving the Western world his best teachings on Vedanta, teachings that seemed customized for the particular needs of the western mind. His first book on the yoga of meditation was assembled and published as Raja Yoga. Later came out a collection of his talks on the intellectually demanding approach Jnana Yoga, and finally, talks on the yoga approaches that suit most people Karma and Bhakti Yoga. A series of private talks to his most serious students at Thousand Islands Park in New York was later published as Inspired Talks.

After four years, Vivekananda finally returned to India for a hero's welcome. Here he was able to put many of his ideas in practice such as service to the poor, education, hospitals, and relief in times of natural disaster. A major day came in 1899 when the permanent headquarters of his brother monks, called the Ramakrishna Order of India, was consecrated.

Reviews:

"Just as the sun dispels darkness, just as Lord Vishnu destroys the wicked, so his enchanting personality destroys the threefold misery of man." - Swami Ramakrishnananda, a brother disciple of Swami Vivekananda.

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda contains almost every recorded word that emanated from Swami Vivekananda in the form of speeches, interviews, sayings, writings, letters or poems. Undoubtedly these are the very words that prompted the Nobel Laureaute in Literature, Romain Rolland to say-

"I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of this book at thirty distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shock, what transport, must have been produced when, in burning words, they issued from the lips of the hero!"

These are the very words that prompted the world renowned father of the Indian Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, whose love for India can hardly be understated to say-

"... after having gone through [his works], the love that I had for my country became a."

And the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, to say,

"His whole life and teaching inspired my"

The Complete Works is a reference material setting down a broad charter for modern Hinduism in general and their influence on modern Hindu thought cannot be understated; and Sister Nivedita's words truly express what it would have been had we not had the Complete Works:

"The truths he preaches would have been as true, had he never been born. Nay more, they would have been equally authentic. The difference would have lain in their difficulty of access, in their want of modern clearness and incisiveness of statement, and in their loss of mutual coherence and unity. Had he not lived, texts that today will carry the bread of life to thousands might have remained the obscure disputes of scholars. He taught with authority, and not as one of the Pundits. For he himself had plunged to the depths of the realisation which he preached, and he came back like Ramanuja only to tell its secrets to the pariah, the outcast, and the foreigner."

A 9 volume and 4600 page must read for anyone seriously interested in Vedantic thought!