Country Resolves to Celebrate Swami Vivekananda's 150 Birth Anniversary Celebrations

As all of us aware 2013 is Swami Vivekananda's 150 Birth Anniversary Celebrations. Several organisations and institutions the world over will organise programmes as a befitting tribute to this great Patriot Saint of India who was intensely nationalistic and deeply universal. In a special effort initiated by Vivekananda Kendra Kanyakumari several individuals, organisations and institutions working at local, state, regional, national, international levels will come together to celebrate this historic event. The uniqueness of this effort by the Vivekananda Kendra is that it will be celebrated without any organisational banner. It has at core Swami Vivekananda's thought, National Union in India must be a gathering up of its scattered, spiritual forces. Titled Swami Vivekananda Saardh Shati Samaaroh [Swami Vivekananda 150 Birth Anniversary Celebrations], the programmes will be organised through five segments - Youth, women, policy makers, villagers and the hill-forest people. For convenience of coordination celebrations in 42 Praants will touch 4 lakh families and an estimated 20 crore people of the country. The motto is Bharat Jaago! Vishwa Jagao!!! Wake Up India! Enlighten the World!!

 Today - 25 December - is the day when Swami Vivekananda commenced his three-day meditation on the sacred Rock off Kanyakumari in 1892 to understand his mission for the future of India. He foresaw that India has to rise with its great spiritual tradition, its cultural values as the foundation and reach out to the world with its message of peace and harmony. To commemorate the same, thousands of people - young and old alike - participated in the Sankalpa Divas programme today. The purpose was to make individual commitments in order to make these celebrations successful.

People flocked in a serene atmosphere which saw a unique programme - Swami Vivekananda's photo in meditation in front of which people sat in neat rows and files or semi circles as convenient. Instead of the regular lectures by appointed speakers, a compact disc played a 30-minute message that included two songs, the background to Swami Vivekananda's meditation on the Rock and his message for humanity and specifically to Indians. In the serene ambience, people took an oath - silently, each by himself/herself in their heart - to volunteer their time, skills or resources in whatever way they could to make the celebrations successful in a way that social values and harmony could be restored. What is also unique is that people cut across narrow regional, religious and community bounds to participate.

Kerala 23 Districts,     205 Programs,     14,167 Swami Vivekananda's "M".
Madhya Pradesh 24 Districts,    232 Programs,    17,296 Swami Vivekananda's "M".
Andhra Pradesh 106 Programs,    6,895 Swami Vivekananda's "M".
Assam 85 Programs,   2,606 Swami Vivekananda's "M".
Chhattishgadh 227 Programs,     21,812 Swami Vivekananda's "M".

As of now, in 21 Prants, 5152 karyakrams were organised in which 3,22,647 participated.