Happy Vivekananda Jayanti

On this Vivekananda Jayanti – and, on this National Youth Day – let us recommit ourselves to a resurgence of values and culture for us and for future generations. Let us value values, rather than valuing valuables. When we do this, we will attain a resurgence of light and peace for ourselves and for our whole world.

Here’s a video from America, where I am today, and where the call for a reconnection to values and ethics is as essential as it was in India when Swami Vivekanandaji spoke. Unless we reunite around universal ethics and values rather than identify so strongly with political parties, we will simply get farther and farther from each other rather than closer and closer. Freedom does not mean we throw values to the wind or ethics or righteousness. It does not mean we throw law and order and the very pillars of democracy to the wind. Today is a perfect day to imagine Swami Vivekanandaji standing in Chicago as he did in 1893, saying, “My sisters and brothers of America….” Let us listen to his words and recommit ourselves to values and righteousness. And, in another of his ardent entreaties, let us be fearless when we stand for dharma. Not a reckless fearlessness, but a fearlessness rooted and anchored in the dharma itself. The root of the word dharma is to protect. Dharma protects those who protect dharma, it is said beautifully in the scriptural teachings. So let us stand, fearlessly rooted in dharma, in truth, in culture and in values and be pillars in the resurgence of those values.