What did Swami Vivekananda Say about Adi Shankara?
The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Sankaracharya. By solid reasoning he extracted from the Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of Gyana that is taught in his commentaries.
He unified all the conflicting descriptions of Brahman and showed that there is only one infinite Reality. He showed that as man can only travel slowly on the upward road, all the varied presentations are needed to suit his varying capacity.
Shankara taught that three things were the great gifts of God : [1] human body [2] thirst after God and [3] a teacher who can show up the light. When these three great gifts are ours, we may know that our redemption is at hand. Only knowledge can free and save us but with knowledge must go virtue.
Books cannot teach God, but they can destroy ignorance; their action is negative. To hold to the books and at the same time open the way to freedom is Shankara’s great achievement.
…his whole life’s work is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and the Upanishads.
---------------
India has to live, and the spirit of the Lord descended again. He who declared, “I will come whenever virtue subsides, came again and this time the manifestation was in the South, and up rose that young Brahmin of whom it has been declared that at the age of sixteen he had completed all his writings; the marvelous boy Shankaracharya arose.
---------------
The writings of this boy of sixteen are the wonders of the modern world, and so was the boy…The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Shankaracharya.
By solid reasoning he extracted from the Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of Jnana that is taught in this commentaries. He unified all the conflicting descriptions of Brahman and showed that therei s only one Infinite Reality. He showed too that as man can only travel slowly on the upward road, all the varied presentations are needed to suit his varying capacity.
Swami Vivekananda