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Sunday 30 April 2017

Interesting Incidents from the Life of Swami Vivekananda – Part 4

There is a famous Hindi proverb, "होनहार बिरवान के होत चीकने पात” meaning: Even the childhood of great personalities shows signs of their inherent greatness. This perfectly applies to the childhood of Swami Vivekananda. Swamiji was very brave and fearless even as a small child. Here is one interesting incident from his childhood that stands testimony to this claim:

When Swami Vivekananda was only 8 years old, he used to visit the home of one of his friends for playing. There was a Champaka tree in the compound of the friend’s home. The leaves of the Champaka tree are said to be liked by Lord Shiva; incidentally, young Narendra also liked these leaves. This tree in the friend’s courtyard was the favorite tree of Narendra for playing. He used to dangle upside down on this tree along with several friends and enjoy this activity very much. There was an old man in the family who didn’t like the children playing around the tree and dangling on it. His main concerns were that he would lose his beautiful Champaka flowers or worse that the children would get hurt if they fell from the tree. So, he fabricated a story of a Brahmdaitya (a Brahmin ghost). The old man said to the children that there lives a Brahmadaitya on the Champaka tree. He further said that the ghost is very frightening and dangerous, and if the children dangle from the tree, the ghost would become angry and break their neck. On listening to this horrific explanation about the ghost, the children became quite terrified and decided not to climb the tree or to play around it. Narendra also nodded and stood aside. The old man felt victorious and thought what a good storyteller he is. But to his dismay, as he went to some distance, agile Narendra jumped and climbed the tree again, and dangled from it upside down. Seeing this, Narendra’s friends shouted and urged him to dismount from the tree lest the Brahmadaitya would break his neck. Young Narendra just laughed heartily and said to his friends, silly fellows don’t you see that if the grandpa’s story were true, the Brahmadaitya would have broken my neck long ago!

Narendra further said that don’t believe anything just because someone has told it to you, you should apply your brain!


This incident from Swamiji’s life clearly shows how fearless he was even as a little child; it also reflects the keen intellect of Swamiji.