The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Writings: Prose/Reply to the Madras address
Friends, Fellow-Countrymen and Co-Religionists of Madras,
It is most gratifying to me to find that my insignificant service to the cause of our religion has been accept able to you, not because it is as a personal appreciation of me and my work in a foreign and distant land, but as a sure sign that, though whirlwind after whirlwind of foreign invasion has passed over the devoted head of India, though centuries of neglect on our part and contempt on the part of our conquerors have visibly dimmed the glories of ancient Āryâvarta, though many a stately column on which it rested, many a beautiful arch, and many a marvellous corner have been washed away by the inundations that deluged the land for centuries — the centre is all sound, the keystone is unimpaired. The spiritual foundation upon which the marvellous monument of glory to God and charity to all beings has been reared stands unshaken, strong as ever. Your generous appreciation of Him whose message to India and to the whole world, I, the most unworthy of His servants, had the privilege to bear shows your innate spiritual instinct which saw in Him and His message the first murmurs of that tidal wave of spirituality which is destined at no distant future to break upon India in all its irresistible powers, carrying away in its omnipotent flood all that is weak and defective, and raising the Hindu race to the platform it is destined to occupy in the providence of God, crowned with more glory than it ever had even in the past, the reward of centuries of silent suffering, and fulfilling its mission amongst the races of the world — the evolution of spiritual humanity.
The people of Northern India are especially grateful to you of the South, as
the great source to which most of the impulses that are working in India
today can be traced. The great Bhâshyakâras, epoch-making Âchâryas,
Shankara, Râmânuja, and Madhva were born in Southern India. Great Shankara
to whom every Advâitavâdin in the world owes allegiance; great Ramanuja
whose heavenly touch converted the downtrodden pariahs into Âlwârs; great
Madhva whose leadership was recognised even by the followers of the only
Northern Prophet whose power has been felt all over the length and breadth
of India — Shri Krishna Chaitanya. Even at the present day it is the South
that carries the palm in the glories of Varanasi — your renunciation
controls the sacred shrines on the farthest peaks of the Himalayas, and what
wonder that with the blood of Prophets running in your veins, with your
lives blessed by such Acharyas, you are the first and foremost to appreciate
and hold on to the message of Bhagavân Shri Ramakrishna.
The South had been the repository of Vedic learning, and you will understand
me when I state that, in spite of the reiterated assertions of aggressive
ignorance, it is the Shruti still that is the backbone of all the different
divisions of the Hindu religion.
However great may be the merits of the Samhitâ and the Brâhmana portions of
the Vedas to the ethnologists or the philologists, however desirable may be
the results that the अग्निमीले [2] or
इषेत्वोर्जेत्वा [3] or
शन्नो देवीरभीष्टये [4] in conjunction with the different
Vedis (altars) and sacrifices and libations produce — it was all in the way
of Bhoga; and no one ever contended that it could produce Moksha. As such,
the Jnâna-Kânda, the Āranyakas, the Shrutis par excellence which teach the
way to spirituality, the Moksha-Mârga, have always ruled and will always
rule in India.
Lost in the mazes and divisions of the "Religion Eternal", by prepossession
and prejudice unable to grasp the meaning of the only religion whose
universal adaptation is the exact shadow of the
अणोरणीयान् महतो महीयान् [5] God it preaches, groping in the dark with
a standard of spiritual truth borrowed second-hand from nations who never
knew anything but rank materialism, the modern young Hindu struggles in vain
to understand the religion of his forefathers, and gives up the quest
altogether, and becomes a hopeless wreck of an agnostic, or else, unable to
vegetate on account of the promptings of his innate religious nature, drinks
carelessly of some of those different decoctions of Western materialism with
an Eastern flavour, and thus fulfils the prophecy of the Shruti:
परियन्ति मूढा अन्धेनैव नीयमाना यथान्धाः।
— "Fools go staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind." They alone escape whose spiritual nature has been touched and vivified by the life-giving touch of the "Sad-Guru".[6]
Well has it been said by Bhagavan Bhashyakara:
दुर्लभं त्रयमेवैतत् देवानुग्रहहेतुकम्।
मनुष्यत्वं मुमुक्षुत्वं महापुरुशसंश्रयः॥
— "These three are difficult to obtain in this world, and depend on the mercy of the gods — the human birth, the desire for salvation, and the company of the great-souled ones."
Either in the sharp analysis of the Vaisheshikas, resulting in the wonderful
theories about the Paramânus, Dvyanus, and Trasarenus, [7] or the still more
wonderful analysis displayed in the discussions of the Jâti, Dravya, Guna,
Samavâya, [8] and to
the various categories of the Naiyâyikas, rising to the solemn march of the
thought of the Sânkhyas, the fathers of the theories of evolution, ending
with the ripe fruit, the result of all these researches, the Sutras of Vyâsa
— the one background to all these different analyses and syntheses of the
human mind is still the Shrutis. Even in the philosophical writings of the
Buddhists or Jains, the help of Shrutis is never rejected, and at least in
some of the Buddhistic schools and in the majority of the Jain writings, the
authority of the Shrutis is fully admitted, excepting what they call the
Himsaka Shrutis, which they hold to be interpolations of the Brahmins. In
recent times, such a view has been held by the late great Swami Dayânanda
Saraswati.
If one be asked to point out the system of thought towards which as a centre
all the ancient and modern Indian thoughts have converged, if one wants to
see the real backbone of Hinduism in all its various manifestations, the
Sutras of Vyasa will unquestionably be pointed out as constituting all that.
Either one hears the Advaita-Keshari roaring in peals of thunder — the Asti,
Bhâti, and Priya[9] — amidst the heart-stopping solemnities of the
Himalayan forests, mixing with the solemn cadence of the river of heaven, or
listens to the cooing of the Piyâ, Pitam in the beautiful bowers of the
grove of Vrindâ: whether one mingles with the sedate meditations of the
monasteries of Varanasi or the ecstatic dances of the followers of the
Prophet of Nadia; whether one sits at the feet of the teacher of the
Vishishtâdvaita system with its Vadakale, Tenkale, [10] and all the other subdivisions, or listens with reverence to
the Acharyas of the Mâdhva school; whether one hears the martial "Wâ Guruki
Fateh" [11] of the secular Sikhs or the sermons on the
Grantha Sâhib of the Udâsis and Nirmalâs; whether he salutes the Sannyâsin
disciples of Kabir with "Sat Sâhib" and listens with joy to the Sâkhis
(Bhajans); whether he pores upon the wonderful lore of that reformer of
Rajputana, Dâdu, or the works of his royal disciple, Sundaradâsa, down to
the great Nishchaladâsa, the celebrated author of Vichâra sâgara, which book
has more influence in India than any that has been written in any language
within the last three centuries; if even one asks the Bhangi Mehtar of
Northern India to sit down and give an account of the teachings of his
Lâlguru — one will find that all these various teachers and schools have as
their basis that system whose authority is the Shruti, Gitâ its divine
commentary, the Shâriraka-Sutras its organised system, and all the different
sects in India, from the Paramahamsa Parivrâjakâchâryas to the poor despised
Mehtar disciples of Lâlguru, are different manifestations.
The three Prasthânas, [12] then, in their different explanations as Dvaita,
Vishishtadvaita, or Advaita, with a few minor recensions, form the
"authorities" of the Hindu religion. The Purânas, the modern representations
of the ancient Nârâsamsi (anecdote portion of the Vedas), supply the
mythology, and the Tantras, the modern representations of the Brâhmanas
(ritual and explanatory portion of the Vedas), supply the ritual. Thus the
three Prasthanas, as authorities, are common to all the sects; but as to the
Puranas and Tantras, each sect has its own.
The Tantras, as we have said, represent the Vedic rituals in a modified
form; and before any one jumps into the most absurd conclusions about them,
I will advise him to read the Tantras in conjunction with the Brahmanas,
especially the Adhvaryu portion. And most of the Mantras, used in the
Tantras, will be found taken verbatim from their Brahmanas. As to their
influence, apart from the Shrauta and Smârta rituals, all the forms of the
rituals in vogue from the Himalayas to the Comorin have been taken from the
Tantras, and they direct the worship of the Shâkta, or Shaiva, or Vaishnava,
and all the others alike.
Of course, I do not pretend that all the Hindus are thoroughly acquainted
with these sources of their religion. Many, especially in lower Bengal, have
not heard of the names of these sects and these great systems; but
consciously or unconsciously, it is the plan laid down in the three
Prasthanas that they are all working out.
Wherever, on the other hand, the Hindi language is spoken, even the lowest
classes have more knowledge of the Vedantic religion than many of the
highest in lower Bengal.
And why so?
Transported from the soil of Mithilâ to Navadvipa, nurtured and developed by
the fostering genius of Shiromani, Gadâdhara, Jagadisha, and a host of other
great names, an analysis of the laws of reasoning, in some points superior
to every other system in the whole world, expressed in a wonderful and
precise mosaic of language, stands the Nyâya of Bengal, respected and
studied throughout the length and breadth of Hindusthân. But, alas, the
Vedic study was sadly neglected, and until within the last few years,
scarcely anyone could be found in Bengal to teach the Mahâbhâshya of
Patanjali. Once only a mighty genius rose above the never-ending
Avachchhinnas and Avachchhedakas [13] — Bhagavân Shri Krishna Chaitanya. For once the religious
lethargy of Bengal was shaken, and for a time it entered into a communion
with the religious life of other parts of India.
It is curious to note that though Shri Chaitanya obtained his Sannyâsa from
a Bhârati, and as such was a Bharati himself, it was through Mâdhavendra
Puri that his religious genius was first awakened.
The Puris seem to have a peculiar mission in rousing the spirituality of
Bengal. Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna got his Sannyâsâshrama from Totâ Puri.
The commentary that Shri Chaitanya wrote on the Vyâsa-Sutras has either been
lost or not found yet. His disciples joined themselves to the Madhvas of the
South, and gradually the mantles of such giants as Rupa and Sanâtana and
Jiva Goswâmi fell on the shoulders of Bâbâjis, and the great movement of
Shri Chaitanya was decaying fast, till of late years there is a sign of
revival. Hope that it will regain its lost splendour.
The influence of Shri Chaitanya is all over India. Wherever the Bhakti-Mârga
is known, there he is appreciated, studied, and worshipped. I have every
reason to believe that the whole of the Vallabhâchârya recension is only a
branch of the sect founded by Shri Chaitanya. But most of his so-called
disciples in Bengal do not know how his power is still working all over
India; and how can they? The disciples have become Gadiâns (Heads of
monasteries), while he was preaching barefooted from door to door in India,
begging Âchandâlas (all down to the lowest) to love God.
The curious and unorthodox custom of hereditary Gurus that prevails in
Bengal, and for the most part in Bengal alone, is another cause of its being
cut off from the religious life of the rest of India.
The greatest cause of all is that the life of Bengal never received an
influx from that of the great brotherhood of Sannyasins who are the
representatives and repositories of the highest Indian spiritual culture
even at the present day.
Tyâga (renunciation) is never liked by the higher classes of Bengal. Their
tendency is for Bhoga (enjoyment). How can they get a deep insight into
spiritual things? त्यागेनैके अमृतत्वमानशुः — "By renunciation
alone immortality was reached." How can it be otherwise?
On the other hand, throughout the Hindi-speaking world, a succession of
brilliant Tyâgi teachers of far-reaching influence has brought the doctrines
of the Vedanta to every door. Especially the impetus given to Tyaga during
the reign of Ranjit Singh of the Punjab has made the highest teachings of
the Vedantic philosophy available for the very lowest of the low. With true
pride, the Punjabi peasant girl says that even her spinning wheel repeats:
"Soham", "Soham". And I have seen Mehtar Tyagis in the forest of Hrishikesh
wearing the garb of the Sannyasin, studying the Vedanta. And many a proud
high-class man would be glad to sit at their feet and learn. And why not?
अन्त्यादपि परं धर्मं — "Supreme knowledge (can be learnt)
even from the man of low birth."
Thus it is that the North-West and the Punjab have a religious education
which is far ahead of that of Bengal, Bombay, or Madras. The ever-travelling
Tyagis of the various orders, Dashanâmis or Vairâgis or Panthis bring
religion to everybody's door, and the cost is only a bit of bread. And how
noble and disinterested most of them are! There is one Sannyasin belonging
to the Kachu Panthis or independents (who do not identify themselves with
any sect), who has been instrumental in the establishing of hundreds of
schools and charitable asylums all over Rajputana. He has opened hospitals
in forests, and thrown iron bridges over the gorges in the Himalayas, and
this man never touches a coin with his hands, has no earthly possession
except a blanket, which has given him the nickname of the "Blanket Swami",
and begs his bread from door to door. I have never known him taking a whole
dinner from one house, lest it should be a tax on the householder. And he is
only one amongst many. Do you think that so long as these Gods on earth live
in India and protect the "Religion Eternal" with the impenetrable rampart of
such godly characters, the old religion will die?
In this country, [14] the clergymen sometimes receive
as high salaries as rupees thirty thousand, forty thousand, fifty thousand,
even ninety thousand a year, for preaching two hours on Sunday only, and
that only six months in a year. Look at the millions upon millions they
spend for the support of their religion, and Young Bengal has been taught
that these Godlike, absolutely unselfish men like Kambli-Swami are idle
vagabonds. मद्भक्तानाञ्च च ये भक्तास्ते मे भक्ततमा मताः — "Those who are devoted to
My worshippers are regarded as the best of devotees."
Take even an extreme case, that of an extremely ignorant Vairagi. Even he,
when he goes into a village tries his best to impart to the villagers
whatever he knows, from Tulasidâsa, or Chaitanya-Charitâmrita or the Âlwârs
in Southern India. Is that not doing some good? And all this for only a bit
of bread and a rag of cloth. Before unmercifully criticising them, think how
much you do, my brother, for your poor fellow-countrymen, at whose expense
you have got your education, and by grinding whose face you maintain your
position and pay your teachers for teaching you that the Babajis are only
vagabonds.
A few of your fellow-countrymen in Bengal have criticised what they call a
new development of Hinduism. And well they may. For Hinduism is only just
now penetrating into Bengal, where so long the whole idea of religion was a
bundle of Deshâchâras (local customs) as to eating and drinking and
marriage.
This short paper has not space for the discussion of such a big subject as
to whether the view of Hinduism, which the disciples of Ramakrishna have
been preaching all over India, was according to the "Sad-Shâstras" or not.
But I will give a few hints to our critics, which may help them in
understanding our position better.
In the first place, I never contended that a correct idea of Hinduism can be
gathered from the writings of Kâshidâsa or Krittivâsa, though their words
are "Amrita Samâna" (like nectar), and those that hear them are "Punyavâns"
(virtuous). But we must go to Vedic and Dârshanika authorities, and to the
great Acharyas and their disciples all over India.
If, brethren, you begin with the Sutras of Gautama, and read his theories
about the Âptas (inspired) in the light of the commentaries of Vâtsyâyana,
and go up to the Mimâmsakas with Shabara and other commentators, and find
out what they say about the अलौकिकप्रत्यक्षम्
(supersensuous realisation), and who are Aptas, and whether every being can
become an Apta or not, and that the proof of the Vedas is in their being the
words of such Aptas if you have time to look into the introduction of
Mahidhara to the Yajur-Veda, you will find a still more lucid discussion as
to the Vedas being laws of the inner life of man, and as such they are
eternal.
As to the eternity of creation — this doctrine is the corner-stone not only
of the Hindu religion, but of the Buddhists and Jains also.
Now all the sects in India can be grouped roughly as following the
Jnâna-Mârga or the Bhakti-Mârga. If you will kindly look into the
introduction to the Shâriraka-Bhâshya of Shri Shankarâchârya, you will find
there the Nirapekshatâ (transcendence) of Jnana is thoroughly discussed, and
the conclusion is that realisation of Brahman or the attainment of Moksha do
not depend upon ceremonial, creed, caste, colour, or doctrine. It will come
to any being who has the four Sâdhanâs, which are the most perfect moral
culture.
As to the Bhaktas, even Bengali critics know very well that some of their
authorities even declared that caste or nationality or sex, or, as to that,
even the human birth, was never necessary to Moksha. Bhakti is the one and
only thing necessary.
Both Jnana and Bhakti are everywhere preached to be unconditioned, and as
such there is not one authority who lays down the conditions of caste or
creed or nationality in attaining Moksha. See the discussion on the Sutra of
Vyâsa — अन्तरा चापि तु तद्दृष्टेः [15] by Shankara, Ramanuja, and
Madhva.
Go through all the Upanishads, and even in the Samhitas, nowhere you will
find the limited ideas of Moksha which every other religion has. As to
toleration, it is everywhere, even in the Samhita of the Adhvaryu Veda, in
the third or fourth verse of the fortieth chapter, if my memory does not
fail; it begins with न बुध्दिभेदं जनयेदज्ञानां कर्मसंगिनाम्।[16]. This is
running through every where. Was anybody persecuted in India for choosing
his Ishta Devatâ, or becoming an atheist or agnostic even, so long as he
obeyed the social regulations? Society may punish anybody by its
disapprobation for breaking any of its regulations, but no man, the lowest
Patita (fallen), is ever shut out from Moksha. You must not mix up the two
together. As to that, in Malabar a Chandâla is not allowed to pass through
the same street as a high-caste man, but let him become a Mohammedan or
Christian, he will be immediately allowed to go anywhere; and this rule has
prevailed in the dominion of a Hindu sovereign for centuries. It may be
queer, but it shows the idea of toleration for other religions even in the
most untoward circumstances.
The one idea the Hindu religions differ in from every other in the world,
the one idea to express which the sages almost exhaust the vocabulary of the
Sanskrit language, is that man must realise God even in this life. And the
Advaita texts very logically add, "To know God is to become God."
And here comes as a necessary consequence the broadest and most glorious
idea of inspiration — not only as asserted and declared by the Rishis of the
Vedas, not only by Vidura and Dharmavyâdha and a number of others, but even
the other day Nischaladâsa, a Tyagi of the Dâdu panthi sect, boldly declared
in his Vichâra-Sâgara: "He who has known Brahman has become Brahman. His
words are Vedas, and they will dispel the darkness of ignorance, either
expressed in Sanskrit or any popular dialect."
Thus to realise God, the Brahman, as the Dvaitins say, or to become Brahman,
as the Advaitins say — is the aim and end of the whole teaching of the
Vedas; and every other teaching, therein contained, represents a stage in
the course of our progress thereto. And the great glory of Bhagavan
Bhashyakara Shankaracharya is that it was his genius that gave the most
wonderful expression to the ideas of Vyasa.
As absolute, Brahman alone is true; as relative truth, all the different
sects, standing upon different manifestations of the same Brahman, either in
India or elsewhere, are true. Only some are higher than others. Suppose a
man starts straight towards the sun. At every step of his journey he will
see newer and newer visions of the sun — the size, the view, and light will
every moment be new, until he reaches the real sun. He saw the sun at first
like a big ball, and then it began to increase in size. The sun was never
small like the ball he saw; nor was it ever like all the succession of suns
he saw in his journey. Still is it not true that our traveller always saw
the sun, and nothing but the sun? Similarly, all these various sects are
true — some nearer, some farther off from the real sun which is our
एकमेवाव्दितीयम् — "One without a second".
And as the Vedas are the only scriptures which teach this real absolute God,
of which all other ideas of God are but minimised and limited visions; as
the सर्वलोकहितैषिणी [17]
Shruti takes the devotee gently by
the hand, and leads him from one stage to another, through all the stages
that are necessary for him to travel to reach the Absolute; and as all other
religions represent one or other of these stages in an unprogressive and
crystallized form, all the other religions of the world are included in the
nameless, limitless, eternal Vedic religion.
Work hundreds of lives out, search every corner of your mind for ages — and
still you will not find one noble religious idea that is not already
imbedded in that infinite mine of spirituality.
As to the so-called Hindu idolatry — first go and learn the forms they are
going through, and where it is that the worshippers are really worshipping,
whether in the temple, in the image, or in the temple of their own bodies.
First know for certain what they are doing — which more than ninety per cent
of the revilers are thoroughly ignorant of — and then it will explain itself
in the light of the Vedantic philosophy.
Still these Karmas are not compulsory. On the other hand, open your Manu and
see where it orders every old man to embrace the fourth Ashrama, and whether
he embraces it or not, he must give up all Karma. It is reiterated
everywhere that all these Karmas ज्ञाने परिसमाप्यते। — "finally end in Jnana".
As to the matter of that, a Hindu peasant has more religious education than
many a gentleman in other countries. A friend criticised the use of European
terms of philosophy and religion in my addresses. I would have been very
glad to use Sanskrit terms; it would have been much more easy, as being the
only perfect vehicle of religious thought. But the friend forgot that I was
addressing an audience of Western people; and although a certain Indian
missionary declared that the Hindus had forgotten the meaning of their
Sanskrit books, and that it was the missionaries who unearthed the meaning,
I could not find one in that large concourse of missionaries who could
understand a line in Sanskrit — and yet some of them read learned papers
criticising the Vedas, and all the sacred sources of the Hindu religion!
It is not true that I am against any religion. It is equally untrue that I
am hostile to the Christian missionaries in India. But I protest against
certain of their methods of raising money in America. What is meant by those
pictures in the school-books for children where the Hindu mother is painted
as throwing her children to the crocodiles in the Ganga? The mother is
black, but the baby is painted white, to arouse more sympathy, and get more
money. What is meant by those pictures which paint a man burning his wife at
a stake with his own hands, so that she may become a ghost and torment the
husband's enemy? What is meant by the pictures of huge cars crushing over
human beings? The other day a book was published for children in this
country, where one of these gentlemen tells a narrative of his visit to
Calcutta. He says he saw a car running over fanatics in the streets of
Calcutta. I have heard one of these gentlemen preach in Memphis that in
every village of India there is a pond full of the bones of little babies.
What have the Hindus done to these disciples of Christ that every Christian
child is taught to call the Hindus "vile", and "wretches", and the most
horrible devils on earth? Part of the Sunday School education for children
here consists in teaching them to hate everybody who is not a Christian, and
the Hindus especially, so that, from their very childhood they may subscribe
their pennies to the missions. If not for truth's sake, for the sake of the
morality of their own children, the Christian missionaries ought not to
allow such things going on. Is it any wonder that such children grow up to
be ruthless and cruel men and women? The greater a preacher can paint the
tortures of eternal hell — the fire that is burning there, the brimstone -
the higher is his position among the orthodox. A servant-girl in the employ
of a friend of mine had to be sent to a lunatic asylum as a result of her
attending what they call here the revivalist-preaching. The dose of
hell-fire and brimstone was too much for her. Look again at the books
published in Madras against the Hindu religion. If a Hindu writes one such
line against the Christian religion, the missionaries will cry fire and
vengeance.
My countrymen, I have been more than a year in this country. I have seen
almost every corner of the society, and, after comparing notes, let me tell
you that neither are we devils, as the missionaries tell the world we are,
nor are they angels, as they claim to be. The less the missionaries talk of
immorality, infanticide, and the evils of the Hindu marriage system, the
better for them. There may be actual pictures of some countries before which
all the imaginary missionary pictures of the Hindu society will fade away
into light. But my mission in life is not to be a paid reviler. I will be
the last man to claim perfection for the Hindu society. No man is more
conscious of the defects that are therein, or the evils that have grown up
under centuries of misfortunes. If, foreign friends, you come with genuine
sympathy to help and not to destroy, Godspeed to you. But if by abuses,
incessantly hurled against the head of a prostrate race in season and out of
season, you mean only the triumphant assertion of the moral superiority of
your own nation, let me tell you plainly, if such a comparison be instituted
with any amount of justice, the Hindu will be found head and shoulders above
all other nations in the world as a moral race.
In India religion was never shackled. No man was ever challenged in the
selection of his Ishta Devatâ, or his sect, or his preceptor, and religion
grew, as it grew nowhere else. On the other hand, a fixed point was
necessary to allow this infinite variation to religion, and society was
chosen as that point in India. As a result, society became rigid and almost
immovable. For liberty is the only condition of growth.
On the other hand, in the West, the field of variation was society, and the
constant point was religion. Conformity was the watchword, and even now is
the watchword of European religion, and each new departure had to gain the
least advantage only by wading through a river of blood. The result is a
splendid social organisation, with a religion that never rose beyond the
grossest materialistic conceptions.
Today the West is awakening to its wants; and the "true self of man and
spirit" is the watchword of the advanced school of Western theologians. The
student of Sanskrit philosophy knows where the wind is blowing from, but it
matters not whence the power comes so longs as it brings new life.
In India, new circumstances at the same time are persistently demanding a
new adjustment of social organisations. For the last three-quarters of a
century, India has been bubbling over with reform societies and reformers.
But, alas, every one of them has proved a failure. They did not know the
secret. They had not learnt the great lesson to be learnt. In their haste,
they laid all the evils in our society at the door of religion; and like the
man in the story, wanting to kill the mosquito that sat on a friend's
forehead, they were trying to deal such heavy blows as would have killed man
and mosquito together. But in this case, fortunately, they only dashed
themselves against immovable rocks and were crushed out of existence in the
shock of recoil. Glory unto those noble and unselfish souls who have
struggled and failed in their misdirected attempts. Those galvanic shocks of
reformatory zeal were necessary to rouse the sleeping leviathan. But they
were entirely destructive, and not constructive, and as such they were
mortal, and therefore died.
Let us bless them and profit by their experience. They had not learnt the
lesson that all is a growth from inside out, that all evolution is only a
manifestation of a preceding involution. They did not know that the seed can
only assimilate the surrounding elements, but grows a tree in its own
nature. Until all the Hindu race becomes extinct, and a new race takes
possession of the land, such a thing can never be — try East or West, India
can never be Europe until she dies.
And will she die — this old Mother of all that is noble or moral or
spiritual, the land which the sages trod, the land in which Godlike men
still live and breathe? I will borrow the lantern of the Athenian sage and
follow you, my brother, through the cities and villages, plains and forests,
of this broad world — show me such men in other lands if you can. Truly have
they said, the tree is known by its fruits. Go under every mango tree in
India; pick up bushels of the worm-eaten, unripe, fallen ones from the
ground, and write hundreds of the most learned volumes on each one of them
— still you have not described a single mango. Pluck a luscious, full-grown,
juicy one from the tree, and now you have known all that the mango is.
Similarly, these Man-Gods show what the Hindu religion is. They show the
character, the power, and the possibilities of that racial tree which counts
culture by centuries, and has borne the buffets of a thousand years of
hurricane, and still stands with the unimpaired vigour of eternal youth.
Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all
moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion
will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign
the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as
its priest, fraud, force, and competition its ceremonies, and the human soul
its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be. The power of suffering is
infinitely greater than the power of doing; the power of love is infinitely
of greater potency than the power of hatred. Those that think that the
present revival of Hinduism is only a manifestation of patriotic impulse are
deluded.
First, let us study the quaint phenomenon.
Is it not curious that, whilst under the terrific onset of modern scientific
research, all the old forts of Western dogmatic religions are crumbling into
dust; whilst the sledge-hammer blows of modern science are pulverising the
porcelain mass of systems whose foundation is either in faith or in belief
or in the majority of votes of church synods; whilst Western theology is at
its wit's end to accommodate itself to the ever-rising tide of aggressive
modern thought; whilst in all other sacred books the texts have been
stretched to their utmost tension under the ever-increasing pressure of
modern thought, and the majority of them are broken and have been stored
away in lumber rooms; whilst the vast majority of thoughtful Western
humanity have broken asunder all their ties with the church and are drifting
about in a sea of unrest, the religions which have drunk the water of life
at that fountain of light, the Vedas — Hinduism and Buddhism — alone are
reviving?
The restless Western atheist or agnostic finds in the Gitâ or in the
Dhammapada the only place where his soul can anchor.
The tables have been turned, and the Hindu, who saw through tears of despair
his ancient homestead covered with incendiary fire, ignited by unfriendly
hands, now sees, when the searchlight of modern thought has dispersed the
smoke, that his home is the one that is standing in all its strength, and
all the rest have either vanished or are building their houses anew after
the Hindu plan. He has wiped away his tears, and has found that the axe that
tried to cut down to the roots the ऊर्ध्वमूलमधःशाखमश्वत्थं प्राहुरव्ययम्
(Gita, XV. 1) has proved the merciful knife of the surgeon.
He has found that he has neither to torture texts nor commit any other form
of intellectual dishonesty to save his religion. Nay, he may call all that
is weak in his scriptures, weak, because they were meant to be so by the
ancient sages, to help the weak, under the theory of
अरुन्धतीदर्शनन्याय [18]. Thanks to the ancient sages who
have discovered such an all-pervading, ever-expanding system of religion
that can accommodate all that has been discovered in the realm of matter,
and all that is to be known; he has begun to appreciate them anew, and
discover anew, that those discoveries which have proved so disastrous to
every limited little scheme of religion are but rediscoveries, in the plane
of intellect and sense-consciousness, of truths which his ancestors
discovered ages ago in the higher plane of intuition and superconsciousness.
He has not, therefore, to give up anything, nor go about seeking for
anything anywhere, but it will be enough for him if he can utilise only a
little from the infinite store he has inherited and apply it to his needs.
And that he has begun to do and will do more and more. Is this not the real
cause of this revival?
Young men of Bengal, to you I especially appeal. Brethren, we know to our
shame that most of the real evils for which the foreign races abuse the
Hindu nation are only owing to us. We have been the cause of bringing many
undeserved calumnies on the head of the other races in India. But glory unto
God, we have been fully awakened to it, and with His blessings, we will not
only cleanse ourselves, but help the whole of India to attain the ideals
preached in the religion eternal.
Let us wipe off first that mark which nature always puts on the forehead of
a slave — the stain of jealousy. Be jealous of none. Be ready to lend a hand
to every worker of good. Send a good thought for every being in the three
worlds.
Let us take our stand on the one central truth in our religion — the common
heritage of the Hindus, the Buddhists, and Jains alike — the spirit of man,
the Atman of man, the immortal, birthless, all-pervading, eternal soul of
man whose glories the Vedas cannot themselves express, before whose majesty
the universe with its galaxy upon galaxy of suns and stars and nebulae is as
a drop. Every man or woman, nay, from the highest Devas to the worm that
crawls under our feet, is such a spirit evoluted or involuted. The
difference is not in kind, but in degree.
This infinite power of the spirit, brought to bear upon matter evolves
material development, made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and
made to act upon itself makes of man a God.
First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods. "Be and make." Let
this be our motto. Say not man is a sinner. Tell him that he is a God. Even
if there were a devil, it would be our duty to remember God always, and not
the devil.
If the room is dark, the constant feeling and repeating of darkness will not
take it away, but bring in the light. Let us know that all that is negative,
all that is destructive, all that is mere criticism, is bound to pass away;
it is the positive, the affirmative, the constructive that is immortal, that
will remain for ever. Let us say, "We are" and "God is" and "We are God",
"Shivoham, Shivoham", and march on. Not matter but spirit. All that has name
and form is subject to all that has none. This is the eternal truth the
Shrutis preach. Bring in the light; the darkness will vanish of itself. Let
the lion of Vedanta roar; the foxes will fly to their holes. Throw the ideas
broadcast, and let the result take care of itself. Let us put the chemicals
together; the crystallization will take its own course. Bring forth the
power of the spirit, and pour it over the length and breadth of India; and
all that is necessary will come by itself.
Manifest the divinity within you, and everything will be harmoniously
arranged around it. Remember the illustration of Indra and Virochana in the
Vedas; both were taught their divinity. But the Asura, Virochana, took his
body for his God. Indra, being a Deva, understood that the Atman was meant.
You are the children of India. You are the descendants of the Devas. Matter
can never be your God; body can never be your God.
India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of
the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but with the flag of peace and
love, the garb of the Sannyâsin; not by the power of wealth, but by the
power of the begging bowl. Say not that you are weak. The spirit is
omnipotent. Look at that handful of young men called into existence by the
divine touch of Ramakrishna's feet. They have preached the message from
Assam to Sindh, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. They have crossed the
Himalayas at a height of twenty thousand feet, over snow and ice on foot,
and penetrated into the mysteries of Tibet. They have begged their bread,
covered themselves with rags; they have been persecuted, followed by the
police, kept in prison, and at last set free when the Government was
convinced of their innocence.
They are now twenty. Make them two thousand tomorrow. Young men of Bengal,
your country requires it. The world requires it. Call up the divinity within
you, which will enable you to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold. Sitting
in luxurious homes, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and doling out
a little amateur religion may be good for other lands, but India has a truer
instinct. It intuitively detects the mask. You must give up. Be great. No
great work can be done without sacrifice. The Purusha Himself sacrificed
Himself to create this world. Lay down your comforts, your pleasures, your
names, fame or position, nay even your lives, and make a bridge of human
chains over which millions will cross this ocean of life. Bring all the
forces of good together. Do not care under what banner you march. Do not
care what be your colour — green, blue, or red — but mix up all the colours
and produce that intense glow of white, the colour of love. Ours is to work.
The results will take care of themselves. If any social institution stands
in your way of becoming God, it will give way before the power of Spirit. I
do not see into the future; nor do I care to see. But one vision I see dear
as life before me: that the ancient Mother has awakened once more, sitting
on Her throne rejuvenated, more glorious than ever. Proclaim Her to all the
world with the voice of peace and benediction.
Yours ever in love and labour, Vivekananda.
- Notes
- ↑ When the success of the Swami in America became well known in India,several meetings were held and addresses of thanks and congratulations were forwarded to him. The first reply which he wrote was that to the Address of the Hindus of Madras.
- ↑ ओं अग्निमीले पुरोहितं यज्ञस्य देवमृत्विजम्। होतारं रत्नधातमम्॥ ऋग्वेदः।१।१।१।
- ↑ ओं इषेत्वोर्जेत्वा वायवः स्थोपायवः स्थ देवो वः सविता प्रापयतु श्रेष्ठतमाय कर्मणे। यजुर्वेदः।१।१।१।
- ↑ ओं शन्नो देवीरमीष्टये आपो भवन्तु पीतये शंयोरभिस्त्रवन्तु नः॥ अथर्ववेदः।१।१।१।
- ↑ Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest (Katha, II. 20).
- ↑ The good teacher.
- ↑ Atoms, Entities composed of two atoms, Entities composed of three atoms.
- ↑ Genus, Substance, Quality, Inhesion or Inseparability.
- ↑ Exists (Sat), Shines (Chit), Is beloved (Ânanda) — the three indicatives of Brahman.
- ↑ The two divisions of the Ramanuja sect.
- ↑ Victory to the Guru
- ↑ "Courses", viz, the Upanishad (Shruti), the Gita, and the Shariraka-Sutras.
- ↑ In Nyaya, 'Determined', and 'determining attribute'.
- ↑ United States of America
- ↑ "But also (persons standing) between (are qualified for knowledge); for that is seen (in scripture)."— III. iv. 36. A person even if he does not belong to an Ashrama (possessing not the means to entitle him to one or other of the Ashramas, stages of life) and thus stands between, as it were, is qualified for the knowledge of Brahman; for we meet scriptural passages declaring that persons of such a class possessed the knowledge of Brahman. Vide Chhând. Upa. IV. i; Bri. Upa. III. vi. & viii.
- ↑ "(The wise one) should not unsettle the understanding of the ignorant, attached to action." The line also occurs in the Gita (III. 26).
- ↑ The well-wisher to all the world.
- ↑ When a bride is brought to the house of her husband for the first time he shows her a very tiny star, called Arundhati. To do this, he has to direct her gaze the right way, which he does by asking her to look at something near and something big in the direction of the star, e.g., a branch of a tree. Next he draws her attention to a large bright star observed beyond this branch and so on, till by several steps, he succeeds in leading her eyes to the right thing. This method of leading to a subtle object through easy and gradual steps is called Arundhati Nyaya