The Fourth of July is my absolute favorite holiday! Nothing says holiday more than pruney skin, water logged bathing suits, sunburn, hot dogs, blowing stuff up and family more than the 4th of July! 

Today we celebrate freedom and independence! Hey, isn’t that the goal of Yoga? The 8th limb of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is Samadhi. Yoga = Samadhi. Samadhi is freedom. Samadhi is the state of undifferentiated ONENESS. Maybe that’s why it is my favorite holiday…

Coincidentally (or maybe not), the Fourth of July is the Maha (Great) Samadhi Day for a very important Yogi. Maha Samadhi, the ultimate liberation, is when a realized being consciously chooses to leave one’s body.  The culmination of an enlightened being’s meditation practice is Maha Samadhi. Sweet Freedom! The realized Swami Vivekananda chose to depart this earthly plane on July 4, 1902. If it wasn’t for Swami Vivekananda… well, history would be very different both for India and for Spirituality in the West.

On September 11, 1893, Swami Vivekananda, chief student of the Great Ramakrishna, addressed the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. His speech began, “Sisters and Brothers of America…” and continued …

“I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”  

He became an instant sensation in the United States and a hero in his native India. Vivekananda developed a love affair with the West and spent the next few years traveling and teaching Vedanta Philosophy in the United States and England.

It is because of the Great Swami Vivekananda that we practice yoga in the West --Yoga as a path to TRUE Liberation, Freedom and Independence! Today, on this 4th of July, one hundred and nine years after his death, I offer tribute to this amazing being!   Jai Vivekananda!   Enjoy this poem written by Swami Vivekananda in 1898.

(photo: circa 1900, Vivekananda on picnic with students in California)

To the Fourth of July

Behold, the dark clouds melt away,
That gathered thick at night, and hung
So like a gloomy pall above the earth!

Before thy magic touch, the world
Awakes. The birds in chorus sing.
The flowers raise their star-like crowns-
Dew-set, and wave thee welcome fair.

The lakes are opening wide in love
Their hundred thousand lotus-eyes
To welcome thee, with all their depth.

All hail to thee, thou Lord of Light!
A welcome new to thee, today,
O sun! today thou sheddest LIBERTY!
Bethink thee how the world did wait,
And search for thee, through time and clime.

Some gave up home and love of friends,
And went in quest of thee, self banished,
Through dreary oceans, through primeval forests,
Each step a struggle for their life or death;

Then came the day when work bore fruit,
And worship, love, and sacrifice,
Fulfilled, accepted, and complete.
Then thou, propitious, rose to shed
The light of FREEDOM on mankind.

Move on, O Lord, on thy resistless path!
Till thy high noon o'erspreads the world.
Till every land reflects thy light,
Till men and women, with uplifted head,
Behold their shackles broken, and
Know, in springing joy, their life renewed!