Akram Youth Memory Power | March 2016 | Akram Youth | Page 10

Glimpses of Great Souls
Swami Vivekanand's
Reading Speed and Memory Power

I

n November 1890, Narendranath (premonastic name of Swami Vivekananda)
went to Meerut. Narendranath had been a
"voracious reader" from his childhood and
used to spend a lot of his time in reading.
During the stay in Meerut, Narendranath,
through his fellow disciples, used to read one
book from the local library every day and
return it the following day. The local librarian
was not ready to accept that Narendranath
was reading the books. He thought that he
was not reading anything at all and it was only
an attempt to impress others. One day he
clearly expressed his doubt to the fellow
disciple. Narendranath, upon hearing this,
went to the librarian and told him, politely—
"Sir, I have read all the books very attentively.
If you have any doubt, you may ask me any
question you like from these any of these
books we had borrowed." The librarian could
not believe it, and so Swami Vivekananda
asked him to test him. He opened a book,
selected a page and paragraph, and asked him
to tell him what was written there. Swami
Vivekananda repeated the sentence exactly
as it was written in the book, without looking
at it. The librarian was astounded and did
more tests. Each time Swami Vivekananda
repeated the exact words written in the book.
Later the librarian discovered that Swami
Vivekananda had a photographic memory. His
eyes, his mind, would capture the image on
the page, and whenever he wished, he could
just recall a book, a page, a sentence. That was
the capacity of his brain and mind. How did he
develop this capacity?
10 | March 2016

H
O

aripada Mitra, a Sub-divisonal Forest
Officer of Belgaum recounted—

ne day, in the course of a talk, Swamiji
quoted verbatim some two or three
pages from Pickwick Papers. I
wondered at this, not understanding how a
Sannyasi could memorize verbatim so much
from a secular book. I thought that he must
have read it quite a number of times before he
took orders. When questioned he said, 'I read
it twice—once when I was in school, and again
some five or six months back.' “Then how you
remember it?” I asked in wonder.
n 1901, Swami Vivekananda was sick and
was staying at Belur Math, West Bengal. A
new set of 12 volumes of the newly
published Encyclopedia Britannica had
recently been bought for the Math's library.
One day Sharatchandra Chakravarti, a disciple
of Swami Vivekananda, came to his room to
meet him. Seeing the large volumes of the
Encyclopedia Britannica, he told “It is indeed
very difficult to read so many volumes in one
lifetime.”
wami Vivekananda immediately replied
“What do you mean? . . . Ask me any
question from the first 10 volumes I
have already read.” Chakravarti asked
Vivekananda a number of questions from
each volume of the Encyclopedia. Every time
Vivekananda answered correctly, and not
only that, several times he even quoted exact
words used in the book.
arendranath explained that when a
child starts reading, he reads one

I

S

N