State-Aided College Teacher,

Department of Philosophy, Gazole Mahavidyalaya

Malda, West Bengal, India

Abstract:

This essay examines Swami Vivekananda’s reformulation of Vedanta as a practical philosophy of everyday life rather than a discipline reserved for renunciants and scholars. Vivekananda, who carried the teachings of Advaita Vedanta to the West following his encounter with Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, is widely credited with revitalizing Hindu religious thought in colonial India and establishing what scholars now call Neo-Vedanta. The essay traces how he reworked the classical distinctions among Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita, and Advaita so that the doctrine of the identity between the individual soul and Brahman could underwrite a program of social reform addressing untouchability, poverty, and the exploitation of the working classes. It then considers the contemporary resonance of this philosophy, arguing that Vivekananda’s emphasis on human dignity and the unity of existence offers conceptual resources, if not solutions, for confronting present-day conflict and social fragmentation. The essay concludes that Practical Vedanta is significant less as doctrinal innovation than as an ethical reorientation of a metaphysical tradition toward collective human welfare.