page_title: Swami Vivekananda and meditation
section_title: Youth (1881—1886)
hierarchical_section_title: Swami Vivekananda and meditation / Meditation in Vivekananda's life / Youth (1881—1886)
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of Swami Vivekananda in Cossipore
context_page_description: Meditation played a very important role in the life and teachings of Swami Vivekananda. He was interested in meditation from his childhood. His master Ramakrishna found him a dhyana-siddha. On 24 December 1892, Vivekananda reached Kanyakumari and meditated for three days on a large rock and took the resolution to dedicate his life to serve humanity. The event is known as the Kanyakumari resolve of 1892. He reportedly also meditated for a long time on the day of his death.
  Vivekananda is considered as the introducer of meditation to the Western countries. In his book Raja Yoga and lectures, he widely discussed meditation, its purpose and procedure. He described "meditation" as a bridge that connects human soul to the God. He defined "meditation" as a state "when the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point."
context_section_description: When Vivekananda (then Narendra Nath Dutta) met Ramakrishna in 1881, the latter found Vivekananda dhyana–siddha (expert in meditation). 
  Between 1881 and 1886, as an apprentice of Ramakrishna, he took meditation lessons from him, which made his expertise on meditation more firm. Narendra wanted to experience Nirvikalpa Samadhi (the highest stage of meditation) and so requested Ramakrishna to help him to attain that state. But Ramakrishna wanted young Narendra to devote to the service of mankind, and told him that desiring to remain absorbed in Samadhi was a small-minded desire. He also assured him that one could go to "a state higher even than that" by serving mankind, because everything is God's own manifestation. This dictum of Ramakrishna deeply influenced Narendranath.
caption: Vivekananda meditating in Cossipore, 1886
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