As we celebrate 160th birth anniversary of Swami
Vivekananda on 12 January 2024, it's time to revisit the teachings of the wandering monk in the context of the current mood of the nation. Swamiji worked on three premises - social discipline, patriotism and belongingness. Swamiji had said, "I want to teach you to live the truth, to reveal the light within your own soul." These words have been the inspiration of my life's journey.
Looking for light within my own soul, in the lap of the Himalayas I came face-to-face with Swami Jitatmananda. It was in the year 1997 that I met Swami Jitatmanandaji, an eminent educationist, management expert, author of books, "Modern Physics & Vedanta"' and "Indian Ethos in Management", an active social worker and the editor of "Prabudh Bharat" (Awakened India), a journal started by Swami Vivekananda.
This was not my first interface with Swami Vivekananda's legacy. I was initiated as a disciple by Swami Bhuteshananda, then president of the Rama Krishna Mission order, way back in 1977. Since then discourses by knowledgeable monks like Swami Ranganathananda, Swami Budhananda, Swami Vandanananda and Swami Gokulananda at Shyamalatal Ashram, Almora Ashram and Mayavati Ashram kept me greatly engaged with Swamiji's intellectual and spiritual inheritance. I drew immense satisfaction serving at the RK Mission Ashram in Delhi as part of the managing committee.
Dr SC VATS
As the destiny ordained under a silver oak tree at "Advait Ashram" in Mayawati in Pithoragrah district of Uttarakhand, vibrating thoughts flowed from Swami Jitatmananda's lips in the balmy aroma of the dense pine and fir forest and he almost gave a diktat to me to set up an Institute, for higher learning in the capital city of India, in the name of Swami Vivekananda, to me and several others, a prophet and a path finder.
It was a gigantic task that fell upon my shoulders. But resolved as I was, I returned to Delhi and in a couple of months' time sold my ancestral house and from the sales proceed of that house seed capital was created, which was so very important for establishing a new Institute with high ideals.
“ My endevour is to take VIPS to the level of eminence achieved by IIS, Bengaluru, which too was set up on the inspiration of Swamiji”
In order to give shape to Swamiji’s dreams, I rolled out a road map. As a first step, a charitable society for total revival of nation was formed in 1998 and named the Society for Total Revival and National Glory and True Heritage (STRENGTH), with a mission of making Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies (VIPS) an ideal educational Institution with the clear objective of "Man Making, Character Building, Nation Building" as envisaged by Swami Vivekananda.
Swamiji had inspired India's first modern corporate honcho, Jamsetji Tata to set-up Indian Institute of Science. In 1893, during the journey from Yokohama to Canada on the ship Empress, Vivekananda met Jamsetji Tata who was also going to Chicago. During the conversation Vivekananda told Tata about the necessity of establishing a world class scientific institution in India, which encouraged Jamsetji to establish the Indian Institute of Science (IIS), which gradually has become India's best known research university.
My endeavour is a small but a firm step in that direction; to take VIPS to the level of eminence which IIS has achieved but not in just one field of research but with an interdisciplinary approach towards education.
That's what had Swamiji ordained --Eastern Wisdom Must Meet Western Science. Swami Vivekananda's writings inspired a generation of leaders of freedom struggle including Mahatma Gandhi and our present Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Inspired by these leaders, we at the Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies have adopted Swamiji's ideas and ideals in the field of education.
Vivekananda believed education is the
manifestation of perfection already in human beings. He thought it a pity that the existing system of education did not enable a person to stand on her/his own feet, nor did it teach her/him
self-confidence and self-respect.
To Vivekananda, education was not only collection of information, but something more meaningful; he felt education should be man-making, life giving and character-building. To him education was an assimilation of noble ideas.
These are the ideas we try to inculcate at Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies through innovative teaching-learning process and imbibing ideals of social responsibility. To us at Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies (VIPS), work is like journey towards discovering our inner self; man-making, life giving and character-building the destination.
(The writer is Founder- Chairman, Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies- Technical Campus, Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi)
