When 8-year-old Swami Vivekananda exposed FAKE news

Swami Vivekananda’s entire life was filled with messages that would be relevant to the human race till the end of time. In fact, even at the age of 8, he provided a message which is so vital today.

This incident happened when Swami Vivekananda, as an 8-year-old, loved dangling head down from a champak tree in his friend’s compound. One day when he was climbing the tree, an old man emerged and strictly asked him not to climb the tree.

In order to scare Swami Vivekananda, who was named Narendranath Dutta then, the old man said that the tree is haunted by ghost, who would break his neck if he climbed the tree again.

The man was actually either concerned that Narendranath might get badly injured in case he falls from the tree or was being protective about the champaka flowers on it.

Narendranath acted obeying the man, who went on his way. As soon as he was gone, the 8-year-old climbed the tree again. This frightened his friends who felt he would get hurt by the ghost in the tree.

Also read: 5 inspiring incidents from Swami Vivekananda’s life

But Narendranath laughed at his friends and said, “What silly fellows you are! Don’t believe everything just because someone tells you! If the old grandfather’s story was true then my neck would have been broken long ago.”

This might appear as a small incident but it holds more significance in today’s times. We are living in an era where we believe absolutely everything we read on What’s App or the social media or even the media.

What we require right now is to think and try to apply logic in every information we come across through any source. Blindly believing everything we read would lead to our slow destruction.

We have already come across incidents where people have been killed because of fake forwarded news.

It is amazing how even at the age of eight he gave us important life lessons.