Professor Ruth Harris on her new book named "Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda."

Professor Ruth Harris gave a lecture on her new book named "Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda" on dated 27-01-2023.

"The relationship of Vivekananda with American women was extraordinary, not physically or sexually but mentally, this need to be understand" Prof. Ruth said. Some of the points which Prof. highlighted about her book, Vivekananda and his ideas or philosophy are:

He:

- separated RELIGION and SCIENCE.

- accepted REVOLUTION but not NATIONAL SELECTION; rejected the idea of COLONIALISM.

- emphasised upon the PRIMACY OF MEDITATION- these were not ends but means.

- advocated for the idea of INDEPENDENCE or FREEDOM in the sense that he advised Indians to shift from SUBSERVIENCE, FEAR and to resist the theory of IMITATION; for him IMITATION is not genuine.

- focused on "How to change ONE without changing ONESELF".

- The cultural values of a particular RELIGION need to be protected and shared. Also, he disliked SECTARIANISM.

- The idea of UNITY is embedded in the notion of HINDU religion as it accepted various sects under one umbrella.

- he emphasised on this idea that "Who knows nothing can know everything"

- criticised MUSLIMS but also many HINDUS too.

- he did scold many for not living the experience of the moments and for not experiencing the importance of spirituality.

This lecture was conducted by Harper Collins India

and Harvard University Press.

Ruth Harris is an American historian and academic. She has been Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford since 2011 and a senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, since 2016.