Quest For God is one of the best poems of Swami Vivekananda who was not only a sanyasin, a bairagi and an Advaita-Vedantist, but a world-famed philosopher, a spiritualist, a reformer, a moral teacher and an educationist. Apart from a traveler and a wanderer, he is a great humanist too. A great disciple of Ramkrishna Paramhamsa, he is of the Ramkrishna Order. A karmayogin, his doctrine is one of karmayoga, nishpap karma, that man is a karmayogi and his path is the path of karma as one’s karma is one’s dharma. Be a karmayogi. Do you your work, selfless work. Only in nishpapa manna, nishpapa karma can be envisaged. The poem deals with man’s quest for God which is but eternal and everlasting. 

Where is God? Who can say it? Man has been searching, moving in search of God for so long, from age to age, but of no avail. Man has been searching for Him in the temple, the church and the mosque, the holy books too cannot tell it about His Divine Presence. Who to prove it? After having moved about in search of, man feels exhausted. He has been wandering in search of God from times immemorial.  

Man searches Him in the temple, the church and other places of worship. Where to find Him? Where can He be? God is not there where we think. None can prove. There is nothing to corroborate the fact.

Like a child he cries in the wild forests asking where He is gone. Where is He God, the Love? Gone, gone is all that sounds and resounds, reverberates with, God is gone, is the final word gotten. 

And as thus days and years pass out in thinking about God. A fire in the brain keeps the search a-burning. He does not know when the day changes into the night. How does time slip away? Lain with dust, he waits by the Ganga side and keeps on doing the penance, exposed to sun and shower. Again, he lays it the dust with the burning tears and wails with the waters.

He calls on the holy names of different creeds and climes to help him out. Show me the way, is the message. Help you, O Mercy, be it of any kind! Help, help! Help me! O great Ones, who have reached the goal!

A proponent of Advaita-Vedanta, his discourses lead us to a series of speeches and lectures compiled into volumes of publications. Karmayoga, is his great philosophy, that he has given. 

O'ver hill and dale and mountain range,
In temple, church, and mosque,
In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran
I had searched for Thee in vain.

Like a child in the wildest forest lost
I have cried and cried alone,
"Where art Thou gone, my God, my love?
The echo answered, "gone."

And days and nights and years then passed
A fire was in the brain,
I knew not when day changed in night
The heart seemed rent in twain.
I laid me down on Ganges's shore,
Exposed to sun and rain;
With burning tears I laid the dust
And wailed with waters' roar.

I called on all the holy names
Of every clime and creed.
"Show me the way, in mercy, ye
Great ones who have reached the goal."