Swamiji's Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications

Swamiji’s message at Chicago Parliament – its implications
Swamiji’s message at the Parliament of Religions – its implications
Introduction:
Swami Vivekananda became world-renowned almost overnight on 11th Sept 1893. He spoke for
a few minutes at the inaugural session of the Parliament of World Religions at Chicago. His reply to the
welcome catapulted him to instant world-recognition. We ask why? What did that address contain? What
was the content of his speech? Was the content of his speech responsible for his fame?
The reason for raising this issue is two-fold.
One, it has been seen recently that there is an upsurge in Hindu religion, especially in the form of
Hindutva. This new form of Hinduism claims to be the custodian of the entire Religion of Hinduism. And
more importantly, they quote Swami Vivekananda extensively, albeit very selectively, and in many
cases, out of context. Many people, both within India and in the rest of the world as well, are confused
about this development. A mega event was organized recently at Westin Hotel in Chicago by the World
Hindu Foundation, the global wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP).1 The entire event, which was highly publicized, was purportedly organized to celebrate
the 125th anniversary of Swamiji’s Chicago lectures. The rabble-rousing that followed was covered by
most important news channels. One of the important speakers went on record calling all non-Hindus
living in India as dogs!2 So, is such the content of this great monk’s lectures in Chicago, 125 years ago?
1
World Hindu Congress-2018 was attended by 2,500 Hindus from 60 countries. It was graced by 220 speakers, including
several high-achievers and experts from the world of economy, education, politics, social work, media, and blessed by revered
spiritual & religious heads. But, most of all, it was the vibrant energy of the delegates traveling from far & wide and their cross-
domain networking that made WHC 2018 such a unique & enriching event. It was indeed a fitting tribute to the 125th
anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s historic address to the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago.
Dhanyavaad for your support and encouragement. It is this engagement of the global Hindu community that allows
WHC to act as a global platform for Hindus to connect, share ideas, inspire one another, and impact the common good.
The theme of WHC 2018 was Sumantrite Suvikrante – Think Collectively, Achieve Valiantly.
2
World Hindu Congress opens with a resounding call for unity
With a backdrop of a life-size statue of Swami Vivekananda, to the traditional clarion sound of the conch, the second
World Hindu Congress attended by 2,500 Hindus from 60 countries had a resounding start on Friday, 7th September 2018 at the
Westin Lombard York Town Center in Chicago. It ended on 9th September 2018.
With luminaries from spiritual, educational, business, and political walks of life among the invited speakers, the
message of Hindus coming together for the common good, with a sense of unity, reverberated the grand hall even as Swami
Vivekananda’s historic speech to the World Parliament of Religions did 125 years ago at the nearby Art Institute of Chicago.
Dr. Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from Bharat, addressed the congress on the theme
drawn from the Mahabharat, “Think collectively, Act Valiantly.”
Bhagwat highlighted the need for such an action now and how Hindus should work together.
“It is an opportune moment. We have stopped our descent. We are contemplating how to ascend. We are not an
enslaved, downtrodden nation. People are in dire need of our ancient wisdom,” Bhagwat said.
In Hindu Dharma even a pest is not killed, but controlled. “Hindus don’t live to oppose anybody. We even allow the
pests to live. There are people who may oppose us. You have to tackle them without harming them,” Bhagwat said.
“Our universal values now called Hindu values lead to the welfare of the individual, the society, the nature and the
environment. It is the duty of Hindus to remind the world, the universal values from time to time.
This duty of dharma to human beings should be performed till the world exists and thus, Hindu dharma will also exist
till the world exists. Hindus know the basic values, but have forgotten to practice them.”
Stressing the need for unity, Bhagwat said, “If a lion is alone, wild dogs can invade and destroy the lion. We must not
forget that.”
“We want to make the world better. We have no aspiration of dominance. Our influence is not a result of conquest or
colonization.”
Bhagwat said a sense of idealism is good and described himself not as “anti-modern,” but as “pro-future.” He sought to
describe Hindu dharma as “ancient and post-modern.”
Hindu society will prosper only when it works as a society, he said.
One of the key values to bring the whole world in to a team is to have controlled ego and learn to accept the consensus.
For example, Sri Krishna and Yudhishtra never contradicted each other, Bhagwat said.
In this context, he alluded to the war and politics in the Hindu epic Mahabharat, and said politics cannot be conducted
like a meditation session, and it should be politics.
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The organizers of the WHF are very clear that they derive Hindutva, or their version of rejuvenated
Hinduism, directly from the message of Swami Vivekananda. Recently, we saw a Govt approved
textbook in Maharashtra mentioning that Swami Vivekananda wanted us to show the killer instinct
towards people of other faiths!3 While the Swamiji’s Chicago lectures are famous for proclaiming to the
world the message of Harmony of Religions, the Hindutva movement claims the same Swamiji’s
message to be the fount of their version of Hinduism. The cognitive dissonance of these two
developments is not lost on most people. We need to clarify these developments.
Two, what exactly are the implications of the message given by Swamiji through his Chicago
lectures? This question assumes importance because 125 years after Swamiji delivered the life-giving
message of Harmony of Religions at Chicago, have the different religions of the world become
harmonious with one another? If not, what indeed is the impact of those lectures?
The actual event:
On 11th September 1893, Swami Vivekananda spoke at the World Parliament of Religions at
Chicago. It was a brief speech, actually a formal response to the welcome accorded to him and other
speakers. It was not even a detailed, scholarly exposition of Hinduism. It was extempore. Yet, it was that
short speech that catapulted this unknown Hindu monk into world renown, literally overnight! We know
that he had addressed his audience as ‘Sisters & brothers of America’.
The gist of his opening speech4 was as follows:
He thanked the organizers and the audience in the name of the most ancient Order of monks in
the world, in the name of the mother of all religions of the world, and in the name of the millions &
millions of the Hindu people of all classes and sects. He informed the gathered audience that he would be
speaking the next few days about a religion that had taught the world both tolerance and universal
acceptance. He proclaimed that he was proud to belong to a nation that had sheltered the persecuted and
the refugees of all religions and all nations of the world. He told the audience that he and his Hindu
people believed that just as all the rivers having different sources of origin, mingle in the same water of
the sea, so all religions in spite of the differences in their origin and methods lead to the same God. He
ended by fervently hoping that the bells that tolled that morning in honor of this convention may be the
death-knell of all fanaticism and of all persecutions by word or deed.
What actually happened?
It is recorded from multiple sources that the audience had gone into frenzy over this little speech.
The audience of about 4000 people had risen to its feet and had clapped their hands in joy for full two
minutes!5 What exactly was the reason for this kind of reception? Was it the content of the speech? As
“To work together, we have to accept the consensus. We are in a position to work together,” Bhagwat said. He urged
the conference attendees to discuss and evolve a methodology to implement the idea of working collectively, “Think
Collectively, Act Valiantly.” (from the official website of World Hindu Conference – 2018)
3
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/now-controversy-over-book-on-vivekananda/article25280978.ece; The book is
‘Swami Vivekanand’ written by Shubhada Athawale-Pathak, published by Bharatiya Vichar Sadhana, an affiliate of RSS. On Pg:
12-13 of the book, it says, “Swami Vivekanand always expressed displeasure over the decreasing number of Hindus in the past
few decades. He had also made a point about bringing all those Hindus who were converted by Muslims and Christians back to
their original Religion. Our ancestors fought to save the religion in the past. According to Swami Vivekanand’s theory, if non-
Hindus continue to trouble, then we have to show the killer instinct.” This book has been listed as miscellaneous reading material
by the Maharashtra Education Department under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.
4
Nationalistic & religious lectures by Sw. Vivekananda: condensed & retold by Swami Tapasyananda: Advaita Ashrama: Pg: 1
5
I wish to mention an interesting incident here. Long ago, when I was a member of the Vivekananda Balaka Sangha, Bangalore
Ramakrishna Ashrama, Revered Swamiji-in-Charge was explaining this incident to us during a Sunday morning class. We were
some 60-odd youths in the group. He read out that the audience had clapped for two minutes continuously. We did not,
obviously, register the gravity of the incident. So he asked us to start clapping and started keeping time on his watch, saying that
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can be seen from the synopsis given above, the speech had no substantial content. He would, of course,
be elaborating on those ideas in the days to come; but the reply to the welcome address had no such
content worth applauding. Yet, these few words had done something deep inside the American psyche,
and the next day, every major newspaper heralded the birth of a new prophet, so to speak.
Ida Ansell, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda notes in her diary6: “One day, he (Swami
Vivekananda) said this startling thing to us: ‘In my first speech in this country, in Chicago, I addressed
that audience as “Sisters and Brothers of America,” and you know that they all rose to their feet. You
may wonder what made them do this, you may wonder if I had some strange power. Let me tell you that I
did have a power and this is it - never once in my life did I allow myself to have even one sexual thought.
I trained my mind, my thinking, and the powers that man usually uses along that line I put into a higher
channel, and it developed a force so strong that nothing could resist it.’”
So, what actually led to the incredible reception by the American audience of Swamiji was this
aspect of his personality. It was not just the content of his brief speech. We are not alluding that the
content of his address was ordinary or commonplace. But, we need to get the facts right.
The world today remembers that Swamiji said something about the harmony of religions in that
inaugural session and we all believe that the message was responsible for his unprecedented fame. The
audience of that day, 11th Sept 1893, at the Columbus Hall of the Art Institute of Chicago, however, felt
something totally different. We must try to imagine that moment, that situation, that presence. When this
young man, dressed strangely, stood up to speak, the audience instinctively felt something. We do not
have a word to describe that feeling. We use the word ‘holiness’ to designate all those feelings. Everyone
in that Hall instinctively felt his immaculate purity of personality. The printed word available today does
not convey that experience. Purity of character is what connects the speaker with his audience at the
deepest level. It is not his words, nor the syntax of his lecture. It is the purity of his personality.
Sister Christine, another disciple of Swamiji, writes the following in her reminiscences7: When
asked what preparation he (Swamiji) made for speaking, he told us none – but neither did he go
unprepared. He said that usually before a lecture he heard a voice saying it all. The next day he repeated
what he had heard. He did not say whose voice he heard. Whatever it was, it came as the expression of
some great spiritual power, greater than his own normal power, released by the intensity of his
concentration. This may have been quite unconscious. No written words can convey the vitality, the
power, the majesty that came with his spoken words. What might happen to one's ideas, values,
personality, if this current of power were let loose upon them! It was great enough to move the world, let
alone one little human personality, which was but as a straw upon its mighty current. It was force that
could sweep everything before it. Old ideas would change, the purposes and aims of life, its values would
change, old tendencies would be directed into a new channel, the entire personality would be transmuted.
What was it which emanated from him which all felt and none could explain? Was it the ojas of
which he so often spoke, that mysterious power which comes when the physical forces of the body are
transmuted into spiritual power? When this happens, man has at his command a power so great that it
can move the world. Every word that he utters is charged. One who possesses it may say only a few
sentences, but they will be potent until the end of time, while the orator who lacks it may ‘speak with the
tongue of men and of angels’, but it is as nothing, ‘as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.’
he would indicate to us when two minutes would be over. We could not continue for over 40 seconds! The initial enthusiasm
started dying down after about a minute. When the two minutes were finally over, there were hardly ten hands clapping!
6
Swami Vivekananda in the West – New discoveries: Vol-6: Sister Gargi: Advaita Ashrama: Pg: 155
7
Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda: Swami Vivekananda as I saw him: Sister Christine: Chapter: Swami in Detroit-1896
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Something of this power is lost in the written word, as those know well who were fortunate
enough to hear Vivekananda speak. The spiritual force generated at such times was so great that some in
the audience were lifted above the normal state of consciousness, so that it was possible to remember
only the beginning of a lecture. After a certain point, there seemed to be a blank. The normal mind was
no longer functioning: a higher state of consciousness, beyond reason and memory, had taken its place.
Long after, perhaps, it would be found that during that period when the mind seemed blank, a specially
deep impression had been made.
This power that a mere human being can have over others is something that is not much
understood. We are all in awe of such a person of power, but, this phenomenon has been not studied at
all. Swamiji himself explained this amazing phenomenon to his disciples and Sister Christine notes the
following in her reminiscences8: There is a connection between great spirituality and chastity. The
explanation is that these men and women have through prayer and meditation transmuted the most
powerful force in the body into spiritual energy. In India this is well understood and yogis do it
consciously. The force so transmuted is called ojas and is stored up in the brain. It has been lifted from
the lowest center of the kundalini — the muladhara to the highest. To us who listened the words came to
our remembrance: ‘And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.’
In the same eager way he went on to explain that whenever there was any manifestation of power
or genius, it was because a little of this power had escaped up the sushumna. And did he say it? Or did
we come to see for ourselves the reason why the Avataras and even lesser ones could inspire a love so
great that it made the fishermen of Galilee leave their nets and follow the young Carpenter, made the
princes of the clan of Shakya give up their robes, their jewels, their princely estates? It was the divine
drawing. It was the lure of divinity.
How touchingly earnest Swami Vivekananda was as he proposed this subject! He seemed to
plead with us as if to beg us to act upon this teaching as something most precious. More, we could not be
the disciples he required if we were not established in this. He demanded a conscious transmutation.
“The man who had no temper has nothing to control,” he said. “I want a few, five or six who are in the
flower of their youth.”
The perspective of the message:
In 1919, after Durga Puja, Swami Keshavananda came to Jayrambati from Koalpara to pay his
respects to Holy Mother Sri Sharada Devi. In course of their conversation, Keshavananda asked her,
“Mother, was it for the establishment of the harmony of religions that the Master came this time?” Holy
Mother replied, “Look, my son, it never occurred to me that the Master practiced all religions with the
intention of preaching the harmony of religions. He was always absorbed in God-consciousness. The way
the Christians, Muslims, and the Vaishnavas practice spiritual disciplines and realize God, the Master
also practiced those paths in the same way, and thus he enjoyed the divine play of God in various ways.
He was completely oblivious of how days and nights would pass. But you see, my son, in this present age
he set the ideal of renunciation. How many people recognize him as God? People were attracted to his
renunciation. Only a few in his inner circle realize him as God. Has anyone ever witnessed such natural
renunciation? What you have mentioned about the harmony of religions is also true. In every
incarnation, a particular ideal is emphasized and other ideals remain dormant.”9
We quote this amazing conversation between Swami Keshavananda and Holy Mother because
the popular perception is that Harmony of Religions is the central message of Swami Vivekananda, and
8
Ibid: Chapter: Teaching at Thousand Island Park
9
Sri Sarada Devi – Her Divine Play: Swami Chetanananda: Pp: 662-63
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hence of his Guru Sri Ramakrishna, to the modern world. In fact, the Chicago addresses are synonymous
with that message of harmony. This conversation lends the right perspective to this perception.
Holy Mother’s words are very deep. She says that Sri Ramakrishna’s central message was God
realization. Renunciation alone leads to God realization. The impulse for realizing as many aspects of
God as possible was unique in Sri Ramakrishna. All spiritual aspirants of the past, be they ordinary souls
or Prophets and Incarnations, were satisfied with realizing one particular aspect of God. God however is
infinite. Hence God has infinite aspects. In Sri Ramakrishna we see a unique, never-before-seen, urge of
realizing as many aspects of infinite God as possible. It is this urge that blossoms out as the wonderful
ideal of ‘Harmony of Religions’. So, we must understand one thing very clearly. Holy Mother confirms
that the ideal of Harmony of Religions is indeed a special message for this age revealed by Sri
Ramakrishna. However, this ideal has no meaning if we see religion as anything other than realization. If
religion means realization of the spiritual ideal, only then does harmony of religions make any sense.
Therefore does Holy Mother emphasize that Sri Ramakrishna’s central message to us was renunciation,
which means realization of the spiritual ideal. Harmony of Religions is, no doubt, an important message
of Sri Ramakrishna to us, but only in the backdrop of this ideal of renunciation.
It is important to note this point. If we do not understand this vital point, we may misunderstand
Harmony of Religions to mean some kind of political idea. “Tyagenaike amritatvamaanashuhu”;
Renunciation is the sole criteria for spiritual realization. Once a person realizes his true nature, he must
be guided to the fact of harmony among all religious ideals. The idea of Harmony of Religions divorced
from the idea of realization of one’s true nature is dangerous, and it will end up as just another political
idea. This kind of development is happening and hence we felt the need of highlighting this point as a
necessary course-correction. In fact, this kind of misunderstanding had happened during Swamiji’s
lifetime itself. He himself suggested the correct perspective of his statements in a letter to his Madras
disciple Alasinga Perumal10. Writing from USA on 27th September, 1894 (a year after the historic
Chicago addresses), Swamiji says, “Dear Alasinga, . . . One thing I find in the books of my speeches and
sayings published in Calcutta. Some of them are printed in such a way as to savor of political views;
whereas I am no politician or political agitator. I care only for the Spirit — when that is right everything
will be righted by itself.... So you must warn the Calcutta people that no political significance be ever
attached falsely to any of my writings or sayings. What nonsense! . . . I heard that Rev. Kali Charan
Banerji in a lecture to Christian missionaries said that I was a political delegate. If it was said publicly,
then publicly ask the Babu for me to write to any of the Calcutta papers and prove it, or else take back
his foolish assertion. This is their trick! I have said a few harsh words in honest criticism of Christian
governments in general, but that does not mean that I care for, or have any connection with politics or
that sort of thing. Those who think it very grand to print extracts from those lectures and want to prove
that I am a political preacher, to them I say, ‘Save me from my friends.’ . . . Tell my friends that a
uniform silence is all my answer to my detractors. If I give them tit for tat, it would bring us down to a
level with them. Tell them that truth will take care of itself, and that they are not to fight anybody for me.
They have much to learn yet, and they are only children. They are still full of foolish golden dreams —
mere boys!”11
10
Complete Works: Vol-5: Epistles: XVII: to Alasinga Perumal on 27th September 1894.
11
See also Complete Works: Vol-6: Epistles: CXXXII: to Swami Akhandananda on 30th July 1897: “Do you mean to say I am
born to live and die one of those caste-ridden, superstitious, merciless, hypocritical, atheistic cowards that you find only
amongst the educated Hindus? I hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense. I do not believe
in any politics. God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash….. Do not mix in politics etc., nor have
any connection with them. At the same time you need not have any quarrel with anybody. You must put your body, mind, and all
you have to any work you do.”
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Analysis of Swamiji’s message:
Now, let us analyze the message that Swamiji conveyed to the American audience during his
lectures at the Parliament of Religions.
Dissociating the essential Hinduism from its non-essentials:
Swamiji actually proclaimed a fundamental fact of religion in the Parliament 12. All religions
exhibit this fundamental characteristic. What is that? All religions have two distinct aspects to it. One is
the personal aspect of religion; the other is the collective aspect of religion.
In his lecture ‘Buddhism, the fulfilment of Hinduism’13 delivered on 26th September, 1893,
Swami Vivekananda says, “The religion of the Hindus is divided into two parts: the ceremonial and the
spiritual. The spiritual portion is specially studied by the monks. In that there is no caste. A man from the
highest caste and a man from the lowest may become a monk in India, and the two castes become equal.
In religion there is no caste; caste is simply a social institution.” Followers of every religion make the
mistake of conflating both these aspects into one. The problem in Hinduism is all the more virulent. The
problems generated by the collective aspect of Hinduism get ploughed back into the entire religion and
people end up concluding that the entire Hindu religion is outdated and has to be rejected.
In a letter to Alasinga14 written on 2nd Nov 1893, Swamiji says: “The Hindu must not give up his
religion, but must keep religion within its proper limits and give freedom to society to grow. All the
reformers in India made the serious mistake of holding religion accountable for all the horrors of
priestcraft and degeneration and went forthwith to pull down the indestructible structure, and what was
the result? Failure! Beginning from Buddha down to Ram Mohan Roy, everyone made the mistake of
holding caste to be a religious institution and tried to pull down religion and caste all together, and
failed. But in spite of all the ravings of the priests, caste is simply a crystallized social institution, which
after doing its service is now filling the atmosphere of India with its stench, and it can only be removed
by giving back to the people their lost social individuality. Every man born here knows that he is a man.
Every man born in India knows that he is a slave of society. Now, freedom is the only condition of
growth; take that off, the result is degeneration. With the introduction of modern competition, see how
caste is disappearing fast! No religion is now necessary to kill it. The Brahmana shopkeeper, shoemaker,
and wine-distiller are common in Northern India. And why? Because of competition. No man is
prohibited from doing anything he pleases for his livelihood under the present Government, and the
result is neck and neck competition, and thus thousands are seeking and finding the highest level they
were born for, instead of vegetating at the bottom.”
Note the words, “The Hindu must not give up his religion, but must keep religion within its
proper limits and give freedom to society to grow.” What does keeping the Hindu Religion within its
proper limits mean? Who will prescribe that limit? And what is the connection between allowing our
society the freedom to grow and keeping our religion within proper limits? We all need to urgently think
on these questions.
Do not try to merge the personal, individual aspect of religion with the collective aspect of
religion. If we can do that with respect to Hinduism, we would have kept the Hindu religion within its
12
Although he did not use these very words, but the implication was very much there in his addresses at Chicago. Elsewhere, he
uttered these very words; for instance, Cf: Footnote #56 below
13
Complete Works: Vol-1: Addresses at The Parliament of Religions: Buddhism, the fulfilment of Hinduism delivered on 26th
September, 1893
14
Complete Works: Vol-5: Epistles: V: to Alasinga Perumal on 2nd November 1893
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proper limits. Religious leaders in India have always taken the liberty of prescribing upon the masses the
kind of social life they need to live so that all of them can gradually come up to experience spiritual truth.
These prescriptions for social life made by religion were valid for quite a long period of time in India.
These social laws (which were crystallized into the institution called Caste) helped millions of common
people to grow materially, intellectually, morally and spiritually for a long time. These social laws helped
the Hindus to meaningfully interact with people who were not Hindus for a long time, since these laws
had provisions for incorporating willing foreigners into the body politick as we saw with the Greeks or
Yavanas, the Huns, the Tartars and the Kushanas. The system however broke down with the Muslim
invasion during the 11th century. Hordes of Muslims came into our country with the idea of staying here.
But the Hindu society could not integrate them into its body politick. This was a major setback for the
Hindu society.
Didn’t the Hindu society face such situations before? A situation where a foreign group of people
entered India and wanted to stay in India but would not integrate socially with the Hindus? We do not
know the historic facts. But, we can safely infer two possible scenarios. One: Such people did come; but
they were militarily evicted from the land by a powerful military force which has always been a part of
the Hindu society, sanctioned by the social laws prescribed by the Hindu Religious leaders; that powerful
military force formed the Kshatriya caste. Two: Some fringe groups did remain totally unintegrated with
the body politick, obviously in very minute pockets, but they were categorized as ‘Mlechha’ and socially,
there was mutual non-interference. Mlechha was the category of people living in the Indian society that
could not integrate into it. Thus, Mlechha was beyond the pale of the social structure called Caste system.
It is interesting to note that Swamiji once said, “No man, no nation, my son, can hate others and live;
India's doom was sealed the very day they invented the word MLECHCHHA and stopped from
communion with others. Take care how you foster that idea.”15
With the Muslim invasion, the Hindu society faced its greatest challenge. Here was a substantial
group of foreigners who wished to stay in the land, refused to socially integrate, and over and above that,
forced their social norms over the Hindu society. Never before had the Hindus faced a social challenge of
this magnitude or intensity.
The reaction of the Hindu society was equally shocking to its leaders. Millions of Hindus
belonging to the lowest caste, the Shudras, adopted the Muslim social norms. Conversion means just that;
accepting the social norms of another religion. It is only the collective aspect of a religion that converts.
The personal aspect of any religion cannot convert. But, the two aspects are so closely mixed up together
that one leads to the other. With the Muslim invasion too, if the social norms had been imposed on the
Hindu society and even if large masses of Hindus had indeed ended up adopting the Muslim social
norms, it should not have been a crisis. But, adopting the Muslim social norms effectively meant that the
Hindu would cease to be a Hindu in his personal life too; he would have to follow the personal aspect of
the Muslim religion, eschewing the personal aspect of Hinduism!
The Hindu psyche learnt two major lessons from the Muslim invasion over a period of 800 years.
One: It had to develop its Kshatriya caste which had been destroyed by the Buddhist influence.
Hindus realized that they had to develop sufficient strength in order to protect themselves. This was
indeed a vital learning and was powerful enough to have rejuvenated the Hindu society long ago. But,
this lesson was accompanied by another very important learning
15
Complete Works: Vol-5: Epistles: XXI: to Alasinga Perumal on 27th October, 1894
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Two: The developments following the Muslim invasion revealed major chinks in the Caste
system. Even if we developed a strong military arm of Hinduism, what would it protect? A flawed
system, which had so deeply hurt its members, that millions willingly jumped camp? It was this inner
conflict in the Hindu psyche that had almost resolved itself during the brief two centuries of the British
invasion by concluding that the Hindu religion itself was useless. It was this inner conflict in the Hindu
psyche that Swamiji was addressing when he wrote immortal those words to Alasinga, ‘The Hindu must
not give up his religion, but must keep religion within its proper limits and give freedom to society to
grow.’
Yes, it was time we recognized that our social structure was indeed flawed and needed urgent
reconstruction. But that was not the crying need to the hour. The crying need was to immediately
dissociate the essential aspect of Hindu religion from the non-essential aspect of the same Hindu religion.
Why? Because the forces that would reconstruct the Hindu society had already been unleashed by the
impact of the British invasion on India, and there was the imminent danger of the essential Hindu religion
being thrown out along with the dated, putrefying social structure sanctioned by Hinduism. That is why
Swamiji wrote to Alasinga, “With the introduction of modern competition, see how caste is disappearing
fast! No religion is now necessary to kill it. The Brahmana shopkeeper, shoemaker, and wine-distiller are
common in Northern India. And why? Because of competition. No man is prohibited from doing anything
he pleases for his livelihood under the present Government, and the result is neck and neck competition,
and thus thousands are seeking and finding the highest level they were born for, instead of vegetating at
the bottom.”
So, basically, Caste was one of the viable options on which society could be formed in order to
lead mankind to its fulfilment. It was not the only option. It was therefore dispensable. And the social
forces that had started working in India had already initiated that dismantling work. There was no need
for any religious leader to do that job anymore. The main job that devolved on the religious leader in the
Hindu society was the immediate dissociation of the personal aspect of religion from its collective aspect;
else, there was the danger that both would be lost. That would be an irreparable loss to mankind as a
whole, for, the personal aspect of the Hindu religion contained Vedanta, the science of Religion.
How did Swamiji perform this life-saving surgery for Hinduism? Swamiji did not do this
exercise for Hinduism alone. He did it for all religions. But its patent impact was on Hinduism since it
had the required maturity to accept the correction. We believe that all religions will in due course also
accept this important correction. Sister Nivedita explains this almost poetically in her Introduction to the
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda16 as follows:
Of the Swami's address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when he began to
speak it was of ‘the religious ideas of the Hindus’, but when he ended, Hinduism had been created. The
moment was ripe with this potentiality. The vast audience that faced him represented exclusively the
occidental mind, but included some development of all that in this was most distinctive. Every nation in
Europe has poured in its human contribution upon America, and notably upon Chicago, where the
Parliament was held. Much of the best, as well as some of the worst, of modern effort and struggle, is at
all times to be met with, within the frontiers of that Western Civic Queen, whose feet are upon the shores
of Lake Michigan, as she sits and broods, with the light of the North in her eyes. There is very little in the
modern consciousness, very little inherited from the past of Europe, that does not hold some outpost in
the city of Chicago. And while the teeming life and eager interests of that center may seem to some of us
for the present largely a chaos, yet they are undoubtedly making for the revealing of some noble and
slow-wrought ideal of human unity, when the days of their ripening shall be fully accomplished.
16
Complete Works: Introduction: Our Master and his message: by Sister Nivedita
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Such was the psychological area, such the sea of mind, young, tumultuous, overflowing with its
own energy and self-assurance, yet inquisitive and alert withal, which confronted Vivekananda when he
rose to speak. Behind him, on the contrary, lay an ocean, calm with long ages of spiritual development.
Behind him lay a world that dated itself from the Vedas, and remembered itself in the Upanishads, a
world to which Buddhism was almost modern; a world that was filled with religious systems of faiths and
creeds; a quiet land, steeped in the sunlight of the tropics, the dust of whose roads had been trodden by
the feet of the saints for ages upon ages. Behind him, in short, lay India, with her thousands of years of
national development, in which she had sounded many things, proved many things, and realized almost
all, save only her own perfect unanimity, from end to end of her great expanse of time and space, as to
certain fundamental and essential truths, held by all her people in common.
These, then, were the two mind-floods, two immense rivers of thought, as it were, Eastern and
modern, of which the yellow-clad wanderer on the platform of the Parliament of Religions formed for a
moment the point of confluence. The formulation of the common bases of Hinduism was the inevitable
result of the shock of their contact, in a personality, so impersonal. For it was no experience of his own
that rose to the lips of the Swami Vivekananda there. He did not even take advantage of the occasion to
tell the story of his Master. Instead of either of these, it was the religious consciousness of India that
spoke through him, the message of his whole people, as determined by their whole past. And as he spoke,
in the youth and noonday of the West, a nation, sleeping in the shadows of the darkened half of earth, on
the far side of the Pacific, waited in spirit for the words that would be borne on the dawn that was
travelling towards them, to reveal to them the secret of their own greatness and strength.
Others stood beside the Swami Vivekananda, on the same platform as he, as apostles of
particular creeds and churches. But it was his glory that he came to preach a religion to which each of
these was, in his own words, ‘only a travelling, a coming up, of different men, and women, through
various conditions and circumstances to the same goal’. He stood there, as he declared, to tell of One
who had said of them all, not that one or another was true, in this or that respect, or for this or that
reason, but that ‘All these are threaded upon Me, as pearls upon a string. Wherever thou seest
extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power, raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am
there.’ To the Hindu, says Vivekananda, ‘Man is not travelling from error to truth, but climbing up from
truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth that is higher.’ This, and the teaching of Mukti — the
doctrine that ‘man is to become divine by realizing the divine,’ that religion is perfected in us only when
it has led us to ‘Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-
changing world, that One who is the only soul, of which all souls are but delusive manifestations’ — may
be taken as the two great outstanding truths which, authenticated by the longest and most complex
experience in human history, India proclaimed through him to the modern world of the West.
For India herself, the short address forms, as has been said, a brief Charter of Enfranchisement.
Hinduism in its wholeness the speaker bases on the Vedas, but he spiritualizes our conception of the
word, even while he utters it. To him, all that is true is Veda. ‘By the Vedas,’ he says, ‘no books are
meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different
times.’ Incidentally, he discloses his conception of the Sanatana Dharma. ‘From the high spiritual flights
of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the lowest ideas
of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains,
each and all have a place in the Hindu's religion.’ To his mind, there could be no sect, no school, no
sincere religious experience of the Indian people — however like an aberration it might seem to the
individual — that might rightly be excluded from the embrace of Hinduism. And of this Indian Mother-
Church, according to him, the distinctive doctrine is that of the Ishta Devata, the right of each soul to
choose its own path, and to seek God in its own way. No army, then, carries the banner of so wide an
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Empire as that of Hinduism, thus defined. For as her spiritual goal is the finding of God, even so is her
spiritual rule the perfect freedom of every soul to be itself.
New India, new God, new rituals:
“For India herself, the short address forms, as has been said, a brief Charter of
Enfranchisement.” In one short, aphoristic statement, Sister Nivedita summarizes the most important
takeaway from the Chicago addresses of Swamiji. She had the incredibly vast, immensely integrating
vision of saying, “Of the Swami's address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when he
began to speak it was of ‘the religious ideas of the Hindus’, but when he ended, Hinduism had been
created.” This is indeed a very sweeping statement Sister makes. She says that as a direct consequence of
Swamiji’s addresses in Chicago Parliament, Hinduism itself was created. What could she possibly
mean by this? Didn’t Hinduism exist before this 11th September 1893 event?
The personal and collective aspects of the Hindu religion had got so inextricably mixed up that
the case for salvaging this religion seemed all but hopeless. Swami Vivekananda, through his addresses
in the Chicago Parliament of Religions and in his subsequent lectures in India from Colombo to Almora,
clearly excised the pure Hindu religion from its accumulated dross. The pure Hindu religion is what we
have been calling the personal aspect of Hinduism; it is a most personal affair; it consists only of soul,
God and the relation between them. There is no second person involved in that affair. That is true
Hinduism. In fact that is true Christianity or Islam too. All religions have that aspect. The collective
aspect of Hinduism or any religion, for that matter, is politics. Tradition has given the name religion to it,
but it is politics. True religion has nothing to do with it. The farther these two aspects can remain from
each other, the better for society and mankind.
Hindus, including the leaders of the Hindu religion, the leaders of the Hindu society, and the
masses were given a clear picture of the pure, unadulterated form of their own religion by Swami
Vivekananda. And this major work, he started with his Chicago lectures. Hence Sister Nivedita said, “Of
the Swami's address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when he began to speak it
was of ‘the religious ideas of the Hindus’, but when he ended, Hinduism had been created.”
Some year later, Swamiji himself was to say, “Now we have a new India, with its new God, new
religion, and new Vedas. When, O Lord, shall our land be free from this eternal dwelling upon the
past?”17
Note the use of the words, ‘a new India, with its new God, new religion, and new Vedas’.
Swamiji had the vision of a Rishi. He saw clearly what he was meant to do, and also saw clearly what
would be the outcome of his actions on India. Since we are followers of Swami Vivekananda, we hold
that this tremendous transformation of the country, and its religion, and its society were the handiwork of
Swami Vivekananda. It can however, equally be argued that Swami Vivekananda himself was the
product of the deeper national forces that had awakened and had started working changes in the nation.
Whatever be the case, this much is certain; India has started rejuvenating itself. It is a whole-soul
transformation that is being wrought this time.
We say that Swamiji was able to see clearly the exact changes occurring in the body, mind and
soul of India based on some of his own recorded observations. For instance, look at the clarity in his
vision in the following conversation18:
17
Complete Works: Vol-7: Epistles: XXXII: to members of Alambazar Math on 27th April 1896
18
Complete Works: Vol-5: Interviews: India and England: (in the India, 1896) by a reporter named C.S.B
Page 10 of 28
“Is India conscious of the awakening that you allude to?”
“Perfectly conscious. The world perhaps sees it chiefly in the Congress movement and in the field
of social reform; but the awakening is quite as real in religion, though it works more silently.”
Why did Swami Vivekananda use the words ‘a new India’? This opens up a huge area of thought
which we shall deal with in a separate essay. Suffice it to say for now that the changes that have occurred
in India since Swamiji uttered these words are nothing less than the change seen when the phoenix rises
from the ashes of its dead predecessor. The entire perception of the nation, the religion, the society, the
national governance, the education, the economy, the politics, the hopes, the aspirations have all changed
beyond recognition already in a span of 125 years! A country that was predicted to implode within a
decade of the British leaving this land has resurrected miraculously and is vying with the world leaders
for its place of pride.
Modern arrangement for society & religion in India:
What was the arrangement for society and religion in India in the past? This issue assumes
importance because India is not a small land or a small group of people; it is a very vast land, with a
humungous population having an unbroken civilization of at least 5000 years of existence. One can’t
initiate changes in such an entity without creating tsunamis of upheaval in society and individual lives.
Although the changes wrought in India in the last 100 years is nothing less than complete, the upheaval
in the body and soul of India, in the society and in individual lives has not been all that devastating; at
least not commensurate with the scale of changes that have been wrought. Why is that so? Swamiji avers
that India was blessed with the life of Sri Ramakrishna, who embodied the soul of India, as it were, and
sustained the entire gamut of transformational shock in his own person, thereby smoothening the
transition for all of us. He derives this explanation from the tenets of Vedanta: “Vedanta…tells us that we
not only have to live the life of all past humanity, but also the future life of all humanity. The man who
does the first is the educated man; the second is the Jivanmukta, forever free (even while living).”19
India was always ruled by kings. That was because the social norms dictated by religion, which
held sway over the land and its people for thousands of years prescribed that governance would be done
by a particular caste of people called the Kshatriyas. The Brahmins would frame the social laws, and
guide the Kshatriyas to enforce them in society. That has now changed. India is a democratic republic
now. Masses will elect their leaders, who will govern the land and the people based on the Constitution
of India, which is the Law. This Constitution of India does not derive its sanction from Hinduism or any
religion, but is based entirely on principles of natural justice and human rights. This Constitution
recognizes the fact that caste-based distinctions in the Indian society will have to be phased out and
replaced by meritocracy. This development is unique in India’s history. The entire responsibility of
framing social laws has, for the first time in its thousands of years of existence, been taken away from the
religious leaders and has been vested on the masses themselves. Religion therefore has become a truly
personal affair of every Indian. Society has nothing to dictate regarding the personal religion of any
individual in our nation now, just as nobody’s religion has anything to dictate about social norms, mores
and interactions.
The exact amount of deviation from its past, all this entails for India, is something that is beyond
our understanding.20 When the British left India in 1947, we chose to be a democratic nation; then we
19
Complete Works: Vol-7: Inspired Talks: entry on August 5, 1895
20
In his lectures, Swami Vivekananda mentions at least one such complete change in the past which is a deviation so vast that it
is mind-boggling to imagine. He says that Hindus were all beef-eaters, once upon a time. Due to the changes that Buddha
introduced into the Hindu society, this habit, which was so pervasive as to define a Hindu, has completely disappeared, and
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framed an amazingly elaborate Constitution and placed it at the head of our society. We voluntarily chose
the Rule of Law, effectively dissociating religion from politics and social life.
Of course, Swami Vivekananda was not alive when these momentous decisions were taken in
India. But, we contend that each one of these decisions was directly initiated by the great Swami. He
himself was aware of the extent of impact of his work on the future of India. Take a look at this amazing
conversation21:
“Have you given any attention to the Indian National Congress movement?”
“I cannot claim to have given much; my work is in another part of the field. But I regard the
movement as significant, and heartily wish it success. A nation is being made out of India's different
races. I sometimes think they are no less various than the different peoples of Europe. In the past, Europe
has struggled for Indian trade, a trade which has played a tremendous part in the civilization of the
world; its acquisition might almost be called a turning-point in the history of humanity. We see the
Dutch, Portuguese, French, and English contending for it in succession. The discovery of America may
be traced to the indemnification the Venetians sought in the far distant West for the loss they suffered in
the East.”
“Where will it end?”
“It will certainly end in the working out of India's homogeneity, in her acquiring what we may
call democratic ideas. Intelligence must not remain the monopoly of the cultured few; it will be
disseminated from higher to lower classes. Education is coming, and compulsory education will follow.
The immense power of our people for work must be utilized. India’s potentialities are great and will be
called forth.”
Indian society was, all along, structured on the framework of the Caste system. This system of
social organization is most certainly the greatest invention of the human mind. There never was a time in
its incredibly long history that the Indian society did not follow this system for organizing itself. And yet,
in one fell swoop, this grand superstructure was discarded when we adopted the Constitution in 1950. It
is really very difficult to clearly imagine the ramifications of this change in our society. And yet, the
change was so smooth, and so natural, that none of us have actually felt the shocks consequent upon such
a momentous change. Swami Vivekananda explains the reason in the same conversation: “No reasonable
person aims at assimilating India to England; the body is made by the thought that lies behind it. The
body politic is thus the expression of national thought, and in India, of thousands of years of thought. To
Europeanize India is therefore an impossible and foolish task: the elements of progress were always
actively present in India. As soon as a peaceful government was there, these have always shown
themselves. From the time of the Upanishads down to the present day, nearly all our great Teachers have
wanted to break through the barriers of caste, i.e. caste in its degenerate state, not the original system.
What little good you see in the present caste clings to it from the original caste, which was the most
glorious social institution. Buddha tried to re-establish caste in its original form. At every period of
India's awakening, there have always been great efforts made to break down caste. But it must always be
we who build up a new India as an effect and continuation of her past, assimilating helpful foreign ideas
today, if there is anyone trait common to all Hindus, it is this – they will never eat beef! Swamiji traces this habit to the historical
fact of Buddha demolishing the ancient ceremonials of the Karma Kanda of the Vedas in Hindu society: But, you see, what once
dies never comes back to life, and those ceremonials of [Hinduism] never came back to life. You will be astonished if I tell you
that, according to the old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a
bull and eat it. That is disgusting now. However they may differ from each other in India, in that they are all one — they never
eat beef. The ancient sacrifices and the ancient gods, they are all gone; modern India belongs to the spiritual part of the Vedas.
21
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wherever they may be found. Never can it be they; growth must proceed from within. All that England
can do is to help India to work out her own salvation. All progress at the dictation of another, whose
hand is at India's throat, is valueless in my opinion. The highest work can only degenerate when slave-
labor produces it.” 22
The question that arises is this: What replaces the Caste system in India today? Swami
Vivekananda believes that the British introduced certain systems of governance into our nation which
have essentially demolished the Caste system. He notes that every religious leader of the past in India had
to deal with the Caste system, right from the Upanishads to Buddha up to the recent ones like Nanak,
Kabir & Ramanuja. He and his Guru, Sri Ramakrishna, did not have to deal with that rather unpleasant
task. The British Empire did that ‘dirty job’ for him, so to speak.
But, can something introduced by a foreign civilization really work for India? Will it organically
match with the national body, mind and soul of India? As Swami Vivekananda says: “No reasonable
person aims at assimilating India to England; the body is made by the thought that lies behind it. The
body politic is thus the expression of national thought, and in India, of thousands of years of thought. To
Europeanize India is therefore an impossible and foolish task: the elements of progress were always
actively present in India.” So, whatever it was that the British introduced into India, must be
‘Indianized’, so to speak, for natural assimilation by the nation. What exactly did the British introduce
into the Indian society that replaced the formidable Caste system, and how exactly did Swami
Vivekananda go about ‘Indianizing’ it are the topics of another essay, for they need sufficient
elaboration. Suffice it to say that this gargantuan task was achieved by Swami Vivekananda for this
nation by means of ‘Organization’ that the British introduced into India, complete dissociation of the
personal aspect of Hinduism from its collective aspect, and prescribing Karma Yoga to the masses as the
divinizing tool for organization in daily life. This triad of ideas, when put to work, supremely fulfils the
purpose of the Caste system in the Indian context.23 There is a distinctly spiritual aspect to this work, and
Swamiji chose to work in that field, as he himself told the London Reporter C.S.B, “my work is in
another part of the field.”
Hindutva as a logical growth in Hinduism:
Till now, we have dealt with in detail about the implications of the ideas of Swami Vivekananda
in the Indian context. We still have to explain the phenomenon of Hindutva, as we pointed out in the
beginning of this article.
The ideology of Hindutva has been studied deeply in recent times by scholars such as Shamsul
Islam, Jyotirmaya Sharma, Walter Anderson and Shridhar Damle. The roots of the idea lie in the
scholarly works of Veer Savarkar and M S Golwalkar of the RSS. The point of contention revolves
around the fact that Golwalkar and the RSS leaders claim to have derived this ideology from the message
of Swami Vivekananda! Is that a correct stand? What complicates the issue further is the fact that the
22
ibid
23
Cf: Complete Works: Vol-1: Karma Yoga: What is duty?: Later on we shall find that even this idea of duty undergoes change,
and that the greatest work is done only when there is no selfish motive to prompt it. Yet it is work through the sense of duty that
leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work will become worship — nay, something higher — then will work be done
for its own sake. We shall find that the philosophy of duty, whether it be in the form of ethics or of love, is the same as in every
other Yoga — the object being the attenuating of the lower self, so that the real higher Self may shine forth — the lessening of
the frittering away of energies on the lower plane of existence, so that the soul may manifest itself on the higher ones. This is
accomplished by the continuous denial of low desires, which duty rigorously requires. The whole organization of society has
thus been developed, consciously or unconsciously, in the realms of action and experience, where, by limiting selfishness, we
open the way to an unlimited expansion of the real nature of man.
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organization started by Swami Vivekananda himself has always distanced itself from this ideology, much
to the chagrin of the RSS leaders. This conscious distancing is all the more ironic given the fact that
Golwalkar was a disciple of Swami Akhandananda, the 3rd President of the organization founded by
Swami Vivekananda. What exactly is happening here? Most of the followers, disciples, and well-wishers
of both the Ramakrishna Mission and the RSS are at a loss due to this perceptible distance between these
two mighty organizations. We need to understand this issue.
It is interesting to note that one of the lectures Swami Vivekananda delivered during the Chicago
Parliament was ‘Buddhism – the fulfilment of Hinduism’. He himself said that he represented the Hindu
religion. Buddhism was officially represented by another person. It was common knowledge that
Buddhism arose in India but was rooted out of the country. Historical forces at work in the Indian society
did not find it compatible with India’s destiny to retain Buddhism. Why would he now speak of
Buddhism as a fulfilment of Hinduism?
The main problem with understanding things like this with respect to India is the awful absence
of recorded history of the land and its people. India has a long, unbroken existence of at least 5000 years.
But that period has innumerable gaps. Today it has become almost impossible to reconstruct the exact
events, uncover the exact causes for those developments, understand the exact sequence of progress of
the nation, and thereby make sense of why we are what we are today. Swami Vivekananda, however,
undoubtedly tapped into the memories left behind in the national mind and was able to reconstruct the
history in incredible detail.
The actual causes for the rise of Hindutva lie in the unrecorded portions of India’s ancient
history. In the wake of Buddhism, the Kshatriya Caste was all but emasculated in the Indian society.
Overmuch emphasis on Ahimsa made the Kshatriya’s role redundant in society. Things went on quite
well for a long time even after this terrible decision, but the impact was felt about a thousand years later
when the Muslims came. There was no resisting power from the Indian society that could put the socially
non-integrating, and socially & religiously aggressive Muslims in their place. Simultaneously, hordes of
Shudras switched camps to Islam, voluntarily, right under the nose of the Hindu leaders. These two
developments devastated the Hindu society and the Hindu lost his self-confidence. The Hindu leaders felt
that their Caste system was found to be lacking but they had no alternative. Added to this was the
discovery of the New World and the Industrial Revolution, both of which ultimately rendered the Hindu
way of life meaningless politically, socially and economically. The sequence of events gave us the
message that there was nothing worthwhile in the Hindu scheme of life, a feedback loop which
enveloped the Hindu religion too in its death grasp.
We need to understand an important point here. What is it that the Hindu is looking for, and has
been looking for in life? Why did the Hindu feel so low about himself for over 1000 years? The Hindu
wants an opportunity to practice his personal religion in a social framework that will allow him to enjoy
life in such a way that his life’s experiences will gradually lead him towards complete renunciation and
merge him with God in Samadhi. The Hindu is congenitally a lover of life. He is also simultaneously a
born believer in the Spirit. It is indeed a self-contradiction but the Hindu is programmed, as it were, to
resolve these opposing forces in his own life. He needs a society organized in such a way that he is
allowed to resolve this conflict for himself. Caste system had provided this social homeostasis for his
personal experiments. It was imperative that he be not disturbed by others in the society regarding how
he leads his personal religious life. There is a particular way of viewing Indian history in which the entire
history of this land can be seen to revolve around this one vital point – the Hindu will not be disturbed
regarding how he leads his personal religious life. No doubt he needs society to help him in this
endeavor, for which reason, he will allow society and its leaders, lot of flexibility in manipulating social
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norms in their effort to provide him the one and only thing he needs – his personal religious space. If, by
chance or due to ignorance, the leaders try to touch him there, the Hindu rejects the leaders and their
authority.
That is the reason why Buddha and his ideas were rejected by the Hindus. Then came the
Muslims. He allowed the Muslims to take care of the governance of his society, so that he could lead his
personal religious life in peace. But, the Muslim turned out to be very aggressive. He would give
governance at a price; he was willing to govern the Hindus only if they renounced their religion, both
personal and social, and adopt Islam. The Muslim was constrained to do this because the only method he
knew of governing a society was if the people accepted Sharia. The social inflexibility of the Muslim and
the social inflexibility of the Hindu, both of which are wrongly conflated with their religions, have led to
an impasse in their social intercourse in India. The Muslim was able to convert the Hindu by reading him
the Kalima (that is how Muslims convert people.) Once the Hindu uttered the name of Allah, the Muslim
was at peace thinking he had converted the Hindu and he would now be able to govern him according to
the social norms of Islam, called Sharia. But, very soon, he would find the Hindu reverting back to his
old Hindu ways of life! The Hindu had no way of rejecting or denouncing his own religion! There was
no conceivable act by which a Hindu could cease to be a Hindu! This was one scenario that the Muslim
had not encountered anywhere in the world, and he had conquered almost the entire known world by the
time he turned to India. The Hindu was a tease for the Muslim. The Hindu apparently seemed to become
a Muslim, but would still remain a Hindu behind his back.
Sri Ramakrishna mentions a beautiful story in the Gospel24 in this connection: “Is it an easy thing
to destroy old tendencies? Once there lived a very pious Hindu who always worshipped the Divine
Mother and chanted Her name. When the Mussulmans conquered the country, they forced him embrace
Islam. They said to him: ‘You are now a Muslim. Say “Allah”. From now on you must repeat only the
name of Allah.’ With great difficulty he repeated the word ‘Allah’, but every now and then blurted out
‘Jagadamba’. At that, the Mussulmans were about to beat him. Thereupon he said to them: ‘I beseech
you! Please do not kill me. I have been trying my utmost to repeat the name of Allah, but our Jagadamba
has filled me up to the throat. She pushes out your Allah.’ (All laugh.)”
This natural disposition of the Hindu seemed like treason to the Muslim and he was dealt with
violently in most cases. The Hindu simply could not make sense of this violent behavior of the Muslim.
The Hindu looked up to the Muslim as his Ruler, as the administrator, as his social protector. The Hindu
felt that the Muslim would take care of a vital social job for him and provide him the safety he needed to
practice his personal religious life, but the protector himself turned out to be an oppressor! The Hindu
had basically sub-contracted governance and protection to the Muslim, and the Muslim’s behavior did
not reflect the trust that the Hindu had placed on him. Consequently, the natural disposition of the
Muslim seemed like treason to the Hindu! Thus, for about 800 years, the two communities shared house
with growing mutual distrust. In a sense, both the Hindu and the Muslim were innocent; each was just
trying to use the other to achieve his own end.25 There were innumerable attempts at understanding each
24
Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: Chapter: Advice to Pundit Shashadhar: Entry on Monday, 30th June 1884
25
There are some versions of history which say that internecine struggles between the Brahmins and Kshatriyas often led the
Brahmins to “invite” foreigners to topple the Kshatriya rulers. Most of the foreign invasions till the 11 th century were of this
nature. They all came from across the North-west borders of India. In fact, the tribes living in those regions must have been
mercenaries, ‘guns for hire’. The Brahmins had no trouble in dealing with foreigners since they had a wonderful tool in their
Caste system of co-opting the invading foreigner directly into the Kshatriya Caste and integrating him and his companions into
their society. This arrangement went on fine till the 11th century. After the advent of Prophet Mohammad, these mercenary tribes
had converted themselves to Islam. So, from then onwards, when the same mercenaries were invited, the same old people with a
new, vigorous faith arrived and the Brahmins could not contain them!
Please see: Complete Works: Vol-4: Translations: Prose: MODERN INDIA: Moreover, it, the Brahmanya; power,
solely devoting itself to the easy means to dupe ignorant barbarians, brought into vogue mysterious rites and ceremonies
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other. Each such case ended up in denouncing the collective aspects of their religions and the end result
was blasphemous to themselves. Attempts such as the Din-e-ilahi by Akbar26 and the Sufi movements
were denounced by Islam as apostasy. Attempts such as the Bhakti movement were denounced as
apostasy by traditional Hinduism since no one could determine the caste to which the resulting Hindu
belonged.27
In such a situation, came the British. They were able to give a greatly balanced, peaceful and
efficient system of social governance. The only fault with the British was that they had no clue about the
collective Hindu Religion. Yet, they gave a peaceful government to the Hindu through their own methods
of tier-organization systems, and immediately, the Hindu started waking up. That has ever been the case
with India. Swami Vivekananda says, “The elements of progress were always actively present in India.
As soon as a peaceful government was there, these have always shown themselves.” The Hindu always
believed that peaceful Government, in other words, a stable society could only be achieved through the
Caste system, with the Kshatriya caste performing his duties properly. In this case, the British were able
to achieve the same result with absolutely no clue of that intricate, age-old social system. Yet, the
moment the British achieved social homeostasis, the essential Hindu started asserting himself, which we
saw in Sri Ramakrishna realizing God afresh. This one single event of one man achieving success in his
personal religion sent the message across to every Hindu that his own essential religion was very much
valid. From then started the Hindu resurrection.
The Hindu learnt a great lesson from these developments. There was a clear distinction between
the essential Hinduism and the social aspects of Hinduism. There was an alternative to the social aspect
of Hinduism, as the British had demonstrated in India.
backed by its new Mantras and the like; and in doing so, itself lost its former wisdom, its former vigour and vitality, and its own
chaste habits of long acquirement. Thus it turned the whole Âryâvarta into a deep and vast whirlpool of the most vicious, the
most horrible, the most abominable, barbarous customs; and as the inevitable consequence of countenancing these detestable
customs and superstitions, it soon lost all its own internal strength and stamina and became the weakest of the weak. What
wonder that it should be broken into a thousand pieces and fall at the mere touch of the storm of Mussulman invasions from the
West! That great Brahmanya power fell — who knows, if ever to rise again?
The resuscitation of the priestly power under the Mussulman rule was, on the other hand, an utter impossibility. The
Prophet Mohammed himself was dead against the priestly class in any shape and tried his best for the total destruction of this
power by formulating rules and injunctions to that effect. Under the Mussulman rule, the king himself was the supreme priest; he
was the chief guide in religious matters; and when he became the emperor, he cherished the hope of being the paramount leader
in all matters over the whole Mussulman world. To the Mussulman, the Jews or the Christians are not objects of extreme
detestation; they are, at the worst, men of little faith. But not so the Hindu. According to him, the Hindu is idolatrous, the hateful
Kafir; hence in this life he deserves to be butchered; and in the next, eternal hell is in store for him. The utmost the Mussulman
kings could do as a favour to the priestly class — the spiritual guides of these Kafirs — was to allow them somehow to pass their
life silently and wait for the last moment. This was again sometimes considered too, much kindness! If the religious ardour of
any king was a little more uncommon, there would immediately follow arrangements for a great Yajna by way of Kafir-
slaughter!
On one side, the royal power is now centred in kings professing a different religion and given to different customs. On
the other, the priestly power has been entirely displaced from its influential position as the controller and lawgiver of the
society. The Koran and its code of laws have taken the place of the Dharma Shâstras of Manu and others. The Sanskrit language
has made room for the Persian and the Arabic. The Sanskrit language has to remain confined only to the purely religious
writings and religious matters of the conquered and detested Hindu, and, as such, has since been living a precarious life at the
hands of the neglected priest. The priest himself, the relic of the Brahmanya power, fell back upon the last resource of
conducting only the comparatively unimportant family ceremonies, such as the matrimonial etc., and that also only so long and
as much as the mercy of the Mohammedan rulers permitted.
In the Vedic and the adjoining periods, the royal power could not manifest itself on account of the grinding pressure of
the priestly power.
26
It would be interesting to study the Islamic analysis of Akbar. One wonders whether the Islamic scholars would call him
Akbar the Great. In his attempts to govern India, he went on to float a new religion! What could be a greater apostasy than that!
27
Take for instance the followers of Guru Nanak. The 10 Gurus would be scandalized if anyone told them they were not Hindus.
But, the Hindu society refused to accept them since they could not determine as to which Caste these followers of Nanak would
belong to. This led to a social impasse, which was finally regularized by the British in their Census as Sikhism, a separate
religion!
Page 16 of 28
The fall of the Kshatriya had led to cascading effects on the economic condition of the land too.
The Hindu had slowly lost his ability to create wealth since protection to the wealth generator did not
exist. The Muslim rulers were able to provide a semblance of that protection and once again the nation
became rich. But, the Muslim reign was never on a firm foothold in India since it lacked deep moorings
in the society and once again, dacoits and thugs thrived on important supply lines and economy nose-
dived. Barring the period of Akbar, during the rest of the period of Mughal Rule, the line of control from
the Emperor’s Capital to the smallest and farthest village was very weak. At the village levels, there were
revenue collecting officials, who would mark their territories. But, between two such villages, the area
that fell under neither official, which was supposed to be protected by the Central forces, would lie open.
These areas were infested with dacoits and thugs who were the scourge of the indigenous businessman.
The British were able to provide great protection along supply lines, and once again, wealth generation
peaked in this wonderful land. But, the British endeavor was geared to only siphon the wealth to Britain
and the creator of wealth in India remained impoverished. Therefore, the self-dignity, that the Hindu had
lost post-Buddhistic period, did not awaken fully. But, the British era was a period of intense self-
introspection by the Hindu soul wherein it realized that its core was sound and healthy. From now on, the
Hindu was surely on the path of regaining his entire glory. Having learnt that its core was healthy, the
afflictions of the mind and body would now be cured. It was just a matter of time.
The only input that remained was financial freedom for the Hindu. He needed an environment 28
where he could freely invest capital and effort29, and generate wealth which he would enjoy30. This last
input was provided to the Hindu through the 1991 liberalization process. Until these policies came into
force, the labor of the Hindu populace was but slave-labor. That is the reason Swami Vivekananda says
the following words: At every period of India's awakening, there have always been great efforts made to
break down caste. But it must always be we who build up a new India as an effect and continuation of
her past, assimilating helpful foreign ideas wherever they may be found. Never can it be they; growth
must proceed from within. All that England can do is to help India to work out her own salvation. All
progress at the dictation of another, whose hand is at India's throat, is valueless in my opinion. The
highest work can only degenerate when slave-labor produces it.” The economic liberalization policies
unshackled the latent forces from within the masses. We must not fail to notice one more development
that had occurred by the time the economy got liberalized inside India. By this time, a strong diaspora
had established itself across the world, gaining critical mass especially in Europe and America.
Concomitant with these developments, we see a trend emerging from within the Hindu across the
country. For the first time in over 1000 years, the Hindu gained self-assurance. The Hindu started to
stand up for his own safety in the Indian society!
Up until this moment in Indian history, the Hindu had to be directed by a central force, to fight
for protection of the society, and consequently, for protection of the Hindu individual. But as we saw
above, right from the period of Buddha, the central direction was found lacking in Indian society. The
individual Hindu looked up to effete Hindu kings, Muslim rulers, and British governors for that direction.
He sought their direction in guiding him in protecting himself. The Hindus had committed the foolish
mistake of sub-contracting self-protection to others! Many social activities can indeed be successfully
sub-contracted to others; but not protection! Now had come the time, when political and economic
freedom, coupled with the message of ever-existing spiritual freedom conveyed by Swami
Vivekananda31, that the Hindu realized he had to stand up for himself. The constant irritation from the
Muslim and the Christian communities towards his personal religion had to be addressed. In seemingly
28
Dharma
29
Artha
30
Kama
31
Moksha
Page 17 of 28
unconnected incidents across the country, around this period, the Hindus started defending themselves
aggressively against the Christian missionaries and Muslim proselytizers. This pan-India phenomenon
was termed as ‘Hindutva’ by the RSS32, as ‘Hindu fundamentalism’ by the West, and as ‘Hindu
Terrorism’ by the Communists. Whatever be the name we give to this new phenomenon, it is a natural
growth within the Hindu community that can only be understood against its hoary historical background
as elaborated above.
So, what the Hindu has always wanted was freedom to enjoy life, in a social structure so
designed as to integrate all his life’s experiences into an overarching, living, spiritual experience of God.
There are two aspects to what the Hindu wants; the personal, internal aspect of seeking for union with
God; the collective, political aspect of having and wielding power over society in framing social laws to
create, maintain and protect a social milieu conducive to achieve his personal goals. In Sri Ramakrishna’s
experiences and Swami Vivekananda’s utterances, he recognized the continued validity of the personal
aspect of his aspirations; in the recent developments of Hindu social assertion, he recognizes the renewed
validity of his social and political aspirations. These two developments therefore go hand in hand and are
complementary to each other.
Hindutva – its limitation: The international mission of Hinduism
As we have amply demonstrated above, this newly awakened self-assertion of the Hindu, this
newly awakened self-recognition of the Hindu’s collective strength, which is manifesting as his ability to
resist Muslim and Christian aggression, is a logical outcome of the overall Hindu rejuvenation. No one
person, or one organization, can claim responsibility for it. Rather, it would be correct to state that
persons and organizations are the results of this gigantic rejuvenation.
The immediate job is to temper this power that is awakening within the Hindu people. Why?
Otherwise, the enormous power that is being unleashed will fritter itself away in mere political bickering
and intrigue, and in the worst-case scenario, will devour itself up! There is a grand purpose behind this
rejuvenation. It is not to be trivialized into being just a political tool, which is unfortunately what the
‘Hindutva’ movement apparently turning out to be.
What is this job of tempering that is needed to be done now? And who will do it? And who will
listen to whom in this matter? Historical forces of distrust lurking beneath the surface in the Hindu mind
will immediately misunderstand any such effort to be the derailing of the Hindutva movement by their
age-old enemies such as the Muslims, Christians and the Communists. In fact, such efforts might also be
misinterpreted as the machinations of the wily Brahmins to prevent the rise of the Kshatriyas. Swami
Vivekananda very interestingly reads the entire history of India as the extended struggle for power and
dominance between the Brahmin and the Kshatriya. He uses the term ‘political jealousy’33 to describe the
tension between them. (See footnote #22 above). When seen at the national level, even the extended
discord between the Hindus and the Muslims or the Hindus and the Christians may be rightly situated
within this perspective. Again, in many places, Swami Vivekananda seems to be in complete favor of the
Caste system and seems like he wants to bring back that system into the Indian society. This has to be
understood in the following lines: The Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra are no doubt collectives
in the Hindu society; and in that sense, they really have lost relevance in the present day. But, it is
equally true that each Hindu has within himself all these four tendencies within him. Each Hindu has
within himself Brahminical aspirations of God-realization through renunciation, Kshatriya traits of
32
RSS had advocated this Hindu stance right from the beginning i.e. from 1940s. But we can locate the permeation of this idea
into the popular mindscape of India from 1990s onwards.
33
“…on the one hand, there was the political jealousy between the priests and the kings.” Complete Works: Vol-3: Buddhistic
India: California: 1900
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service, benevolence and charity, Vaishya capacities for wealth generation and distribution, and the
Shudra ability for tireless labor and forbearance.
Let us recall the following conversations of Swami Vivekananda in this context:34
“I have only one question more to ask you. You have defined the attitude and function of your
movement with regard to your own people. Could you in the same way characterize your methods of
action as a whole?”
“Our method”, said the Swami, “is very easily described. It simply consists in reasserting the
national life. Buddha preached renunciation. India heard, and yet in six centuries she reached her
greatest height. The secret lies there. The national ideals of India are RENUNCIATION and SERVICE.
Intensify her in those channels, and the rest will take care of itself. The banner of the spiritual cannot be
raised too high in this country. In it alone is salvation.”
A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in
the Lord, and nerved to lion's courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the
downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the
gospel of help, the gospel of social raising-up – the gospel of equality.35
But at the same time (in rejecting Buddhism), Brahminism lost something – that reforming zeal,
that wonderful sympathy and charity for everybody, that wonderful heaven which Buddhism had brought
to the masses and which had rendered Indian society so great that a Greek historian who wrote about
India of that time was led to say that no Hindu was known to tell an untruth and no Hindu woman was
known to be unchaste.
Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism, nor Buddhism without Hinduism. Then realize what the
separation has shown to us, that the Buddhists cannot stand without the brain and philosophy of the
Brahmins, nor the Brahmin without the heart of the Buddhist. This separation between the Buddhists and
the Brahmins is the cause of the downfall of India. That is why India is populated by three hundred
millions of beggars, and that is why India has been the slave of conquerors for the last thousand years.
Let us then join the wonderful intellect of the Brahmins with the heart, the noble soul, the wonderful
humanizing power of the Great Master.36
Each man has a mission in life, which is the result of all his infinite past Karma. Each of you was
born with a splendid heritage, which is the whole of the infinite past life of your glorious nation. Millions
of your ancestors are watching, as it were, every action of yours, so be alert. And what is the mission
with which every Hindu child is born? Have you not read the proud declaration of Manu regarding the
Brahmin where he says that the birth of the Brahmin is ‘for the protection of the treasury of religion’? I
should say that that is the mission not only of the Brahmin, but of every child, whether boy or girl, who is
born in this blessed land ‘for the protection of the treasury of religion’. And every other problem in life
must be subordinated to that one principal theme. That is also the law of harmony in music. There may
be a nation whose theme of life is political supremacy; religion and everything else must become
subordinate to that one great theme of its life. But here is another nation whose great theme of life is
spirituality and renunciation, whose one watchword is that this world is all vanity and a delusion of three
days, and everything else, whether science or knowledge, enjoyment or powers, wealth, name, or fame,
must be subordinated to that one theme. The secret of a true Hindu’s character lies in the subordination
34
35
Complete Works: Vol-5: Epistles: IV: to Alasinga Perumal on 20th August, 1893
36
Complete Works: Vol-1: Addresses at The Parliament of Religions: Buddhism, the fulfilment of Hinduism
Page 19 of 28
of his knowledge of European sciences and learning, of his wealth, position, and name, to that one
principal theme which is inborn in every Hindu child – the spirituality and purity of the race.
Our ideal of high birth, therefore, is different from, that of others. Our ideal is the Brahmin of
spiritual culture and renunciation. By the Brahmin ideal what do I mean? I mean the ideal Brahmin-ness
in which worldliness is altogether absent and true wisdom is abundantly present. That is the ideal of the
Hindu race. Have you not heard how it is declared that he, the Brahmin, is not amenable to law, that he
has no law, that he is not governed by kings, and that his body cannot be hurt? That is perfectly true. Do
not understand it in the light thrown upon it by interested and ignorant fools, but understand it in the
light of the true and original Vedantic conception. If the Brahmin is he who has killed all selfishness and
who lives and works to acquire and propagate wisdom and the power of love – if a country is altogether
inhabited by such Brahmins, by men and women who are spiritual and moral and good, is it strange to
think of that country as being above and beyond all law? What police, what military are necessary to
govern them? Why should anyone govern them at all? Why should they live under a government? They
are good and noble, and they are the men of God; these are our ideal Brahmins, and we read that in the
Satya Yuga there was only one caste, and that was the Brahmin. We read in the Mahabharata that the
whole world was in the beginning peopled with Brahmins, and that as they began to degenerate, they
became divided into different castes, and that when the cycle turns round, they will all go back to that
Brahminical origin. This cycle is turning round now, and I draw your attention to this fact. Therefore our
solution of the caste question is not degrading those who are already high up, is not running amuck
through food and drink, is not jumping out of our own limits in order to have more enjoyment, but it
comes by every one of us, fulfilling the dictates of our Vedantic religion, by our attaining spirituality, and
by our becoming the ideal Brahmin. There is a law laid on each one of you in this land by your
ancestors, whether you are Aryans or non-Aryans, Rishis or Brahmins, or the very lowest outcasts. The
command is the same to you all, that you must make progress without stopping, and that from the highest
man to the lowest Pariah, everyone in this country has to try and become the ideal Brahmin. This
Vedantic idea is applicable not only here but over the whole world. Such is our ideal of caste as meant
for raising all humanity slowly and gently towards the realization of that great ideal of the spiritual man
who is non-resisting, calm, steady, worshipful, pure, and meditative. In that ideal there is God.37
Let us allow Swami Vivekananda himself to dictate the tempering to the newly awakened
Kshatriyas among the Hindus. Power they shall exhibit, no doubt; power they shall wield, politically,
economically and socially, no doubt. But it must be done in the sense of ‘Service’ only. It must be done
as service to every Indian living in this land. It must be done with the object of achieving renunciation.
Power is to be wielded and exercised with a view to achieve inner renunciation alone. All other attitudes
are wrong and run against the national grain. Another way of saying the same thing is: The collective
awakening of Brahmin Hindus and Kshatriya Hindus is not relevant anymore in India. What is needed
immediately is the awakening of the Brahmin, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya and the Shudra within every
Hindu. That is the reason Swamiji so beautifully said, “The national ideals of India are RENUNCIATION
and SERVICE. Intensify her in those channels, and the rest will take care of itself. The banner of the
spiritual cannot be raised too high in this country. In it alone is salvation.”
It is in this context that we say that Hinduism thus has an International mission to fulfil. It has a
very particular duty to perform in the International level. Hinduism has to educate Islam and Christianity
that they too have an essential and non-essential aspect within them. The time has come all over the
world to delegate the non-essential aspects of their religions, which is basically the socio-political
aspects, to the Constitutions of the respective nations. Thus the individual is left free to practice his
37
Complete Works: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: The Mission of the Vedanta: Kumbakonam
Page 20 of 28
personal religion in peace. All social, political and economic affairs have to be immediately divorced
from religion. No religion, be it Hinduism, Islam or Christianity will be permitted to wield any social,
political or economic power. Religion everywhere shall exist in its purest form in every person, which is
the eternal relationship of the eternal soul to the eternal God 38. Hinduism has the requisite tools to
uncover this immortal aspect in every religion. This is not conversion. This is education. This is leading
every person by the hand with love in the heart to recognize and implement the eternal aspect in his own
religion in his own life.
Once this education is imparted worldwide, a new era will dawn in the world. What the world
needs today is this education whereby the entire social process is rendered free of all religious influences.
Society everywhere should run on principles of natural justice and natural rights of human beings. It has
now become possible to identify and establish those principles completely independent of religious
sanction in every part of the world.
The rejuvenated Hindu identity has to perform this ‘Service’ to humanity everywhere, including
within India.39 Violence is anathema to service and education. You cannot serve by being violent. You
cannot teach by being violent. Tremendous love in the heart pours out as service and education. The
Hindutva movement has to urgently recognize this duty that falls on its part. Their new found power has
to be channeled into educating the Indians (Hindus, Muslims and Christians) about ‘rendering unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’.40 And this service, this
education, has to be done at the international level too. Unless this direction is given to the newly
awakened power, this very power will devour the Indian society. And that would be a great loss to
humanity itself. Swami Vivekananda said to Sri Narendranath Sen, Editor of the Mirror, “I believe that
by this cultivation of religion and the wider diffusion of Vedanta, both this country and the West will gain
enormously. To me the pursuit of politics is a secondary means in comparison with this. I will lay down
my life to carry out this belief practically. If you believe in any other way of accomplishing the good of
India, well, you may go on working your own way.”41
Religious education – Harmony of Religions:
Take a look at the following words of Swami Vivekananda. They set the pace and impart the
direction for the awakened Hindu collective power. If these words of the great Swami do not temper this
force ‘for the good of all, for the benefit of all’, bleak indeed is our national future:
We live that grand truth (Ekam sat, Vipraha bahudha vadanti) in every vein, and our country has
become the glorious land of religious toleration. It is here and here alone that they build temples and
churches for the religions which have come with the object of condemning our own religion. This is one
very great principle that the world is waiting to learn from us. Ay, you little know how much of
intolerance is yet abroad. It struck me more than once that I should have to leave my bones on foreign
shores owing to the prevalence of religious intolerance. Killing a man is nothing for religion's sake;
38
Complete Works: Vol-3: Unity, the goal of Religion: New York, 1896
39
Cf: Complete Works: Vol-2: Jnana-Yoga: Maya and the evolution of the conception of God: in London, 20th October 1896:
We, in India, allowed liberty in spiritual matters, and we have a tremendous spiritual power in religious thought even today. You
(in the West) grant the same liberty in social matters, and so have a splendid social organization. We have not given any
freedom to the expansion of social matters, and ours is a cramped society. You have never given any freedom in religious
matters but with fire and sword have enforced your beliefs, and the result is that religion is a stunted, degenerated growth in the
European mind. In India, we have to take off the shackles from society; in Europe, the chains must be taken from the feet of
spiritual progress. Then will come a wonderful growth and development of man.
40
The Bible – New Testament: Gospel according to St. Matthew: 22:21
41
Complete Works: Vol-6: Conversations & Dialogues: I: by Sharatchandra Chakravarty
Page 21 of 28
tomorrow they may do it in the very heart of the boasted civilization of the West, if today they are not
really doing so.42
Therefore the world is waiting for this grand idea of universal toleration. It will be a great
acquisition to civilization. Nay, no civilization can long exist unless this idea enters into it. No
civilization can grow unless fanatics, bloodshed, and brutality stop. No civilization can begin to lift up its
head until we look charitably upon one another; and the first step towards that much-needed charity is to
look charitably and kindly upon the religious convictions of others. Nay more, to understand that not
only should we be charitable, but positively helpful to each other, however different our religious ideas
and convictions may be. And that is exactly what we do in India as I have just related to you. It is here in
India that Hindus have built and are still building churches for Christians and mosques for
Mohammedans. That is the thing to do. In spite of their hatred, in spite of their brutality, in spite of their
cruelty, in spite of their tyranny, and in spite of the vile language they are given to uttering, we will and
must go on building churches for the Christians and mosques for the Mohammedans until we conquer
through love, until we have demonstrated to the world that love alone is the fittest thing to survive and
not hatred, that it is gentleness that has the strength to live on and to fructify, and not mere brutality and
physical force.43
…We have to teach them something, and that is our religion, that is our spirituality. For a
complete civilization the world is waiting, waiting for the treasures to come out of India, waiting for the
marvelous spiritual inheritance of the race, which, through decades of degradation and misery, the
nation has still clutched to her breast. The world is waiting for that treasure; little do you know how
much of hunger and of thirst there is outside of India for these wonderful treasures of our forefathers. We
talk here, we quarrel with each other, we laugh at and we ridicule everything sacred, till it has become
almost a national vice to ridicule everything holy. Little do we understand the heart-pangs of millions
waiting outside the walls, stretching forth their hands for a little sip of that nectar which our forefathers
have preserved in this land of India. Therefore we must go out, exchange our spirituality for anything
they have to give us; for the marvels of the region of spirit we will exchange the marvels of the region of
matter. We will not be students always, but teachers also. There cannot be friendship without equality,
and there cannot be equality when one party is always the teacher and the other party sits always at his
feet. If you want to become equal with the Englishman or the American, you will have to teach as well as
to learn, and you have plenty yet to teach to the world for centuries to come. This has to be done. Fire
and enthusiasm must be in our blood. We Bengalis have been credited with imagination, and I believe we
have it. We have been ridiculed as an imaginative race, as men with a good deal of feeling. Let me tell
you, my friends, intellect is great indeed, but it stops within certain bounds. It is through the heart, and
the heart alone, that inspiration comes. It is through the feelings that the highest secrets are reached;
and therefore it is the Bengali, the man of feeling, that has to do this work.44
Consciously or unconsciously that Indian idea of the divinity within everyone is expressing itself
even in other countries. And in your books is the explanation which other nations have to accept. The
treatment of one man to another will be entirely revolutionized, and these old, old ideas of pointing to
the weakness of mankind will have to go. They will have received their death-blow within this century.
Now people may stand up and criticize us. I have been criticized, from one end of the world to the other,
as one who preaches the diabolical idea that there is no sin! Very good. The descendants of these very
42
Complete Works: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: The Mission of the Vedanta: Kumbakonam
43
ibid
44
Complete Works: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: Calcutta Lecture
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men will bless me as the preacher of virtue, and not of sin. I am the teacher of virtue, not of sin. I glory in
being the preacher of light, and not of darkness.45
The second great idea which the world is waiting to receive from our Upanishads is the
solidarity of this universe. The old lines of demarcation and differentiation are vanishing rapidly.
Electricity and steam-power are placing the different parts of the world in intercommunication with each
other, and, as a result, we Hindus no longer say that every country beyond our own land is peopled with
demons and hobgoblins, nor do the people of Christian countries say that India is only peopled by
cannibals and savages. When we go out of our country, we find the same brother-man, with the same
strong hand to help, with the same lips to say godspeed; and sometimes they are better than in the
country in which we are born. When they come here, they find the same brotherhood, the same cheer, the
same godspeed.46
Our Upanishads say that the cause of all misery is ignorance; and that is perfectly true when
applied to every state of life, either social or spiritual. It is ignorance that makes us hate each other, it is
through ignorance that we do not know and do not love each other. As soon as we come to know each
other, love comes, must come, for are we not one? Thus we find solidarity coming in spite of itself. Even
in politics and sociology, problems that were only national twenty years ago can no more be solved on
national grounds only. They are assuming huge proportions, gigantic shapes. They can only be solved
when looked at in the broader light of international grounds. International organizations, international
combinations, international laws are the cry of the day. That shows the solidarity. In science, every day
they are coming to a similar broad view of matter. You speak of matter, the whole universe as one mass,
one ocean of matter, in which you and I, the sun and the moon, and everything else are but the names of
different little whirlpools and nothing more. Mentally speaking, it is one universal ocean of thought in
which you and I are similar little whirlpools; and as spirit it moveth not, it changeth not. It is the One
Unchangeable, Unbroken, Homogeneous Atman. The cry for morality is coming also, and that is to be
found in our books. The explanation of morality, the fountain of ethics, that also the world wants; and
that it will get here.47
Take a look at this observation and prophecy by Swami Vivekananda: It is here in India that
Hindus have built and are still building churches for Christians and mosques for Mohammedans. That is
the thing to do. In spite of their hatred, in spite of their brutality, in spite of their cruelty, in spite of their
tyranny, and in spite of the vile language they are given to uttering, we will and must go on building
churches for the Christians and mosques for the Mohammedans until we conquer through love, until we
have demonstrated to the world that love alone is the fittest thing to survive and not hatred, that it is
gentleness that has the strength to live on and to fructify, and not mere brutality and physical force. The
Hindutva movement will immediately object to these words of Swami Vivekananda. They will instantly
hound us by asking how we can tolerate the aggression of the Muslims and Christians, which we have
done for many centuries. The centuries of distrust that has accumulated in the national mind has started to
surface as a collective paranoia in the Hindu mind that if such tolerance and acceptance continues, the
Hindus will be reduced to a minority population or may even become extinct!
That is precisely the reason for pointing out that we Hindus have an urgent international duty to
perform; that of urgently educating the people of all religions about two vital ideas which Swami
Vivekananda had highlighted in his Chicago addresses: One: Every religion has an essential and a non-
essential part; the time has come to globally delegate the non-essential part of every religion to
45
Complete works: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: Vedanta in its application to Indian Life: Madras
46
ibid
47
ibid
Page 23 of 28
democratic processes of social intercourse. Two: Every religion states that man is divine; realizing this
divinity in the context of one’s life is real religion, and not belief in dogmas. There is an urgent need to
rapidly educate every part of the world with these two ideas.
The very introduction of these two ideas into any religion will instantly remove the sting of
aggression from it. We must note that this does not mean we spread Vedanta among the Muslims and the
Christians. That is not possible, for the Muslims and Christians will violently reject it as an affront on
their religion. Proselytizing religions will misinterpret every attempt at communication as our effort at
converting them! We need to dive into the Scriptures of these religions and discover the teachings and
revelations of their prophets where they clearly say that each man is divine, and that each man needs to
realize that divinity in his own life, and then each man has to realize his essential relationship with God.
We need to become for the time-being, a Muslim and a Christian, as it were, and discover these universal
ideas within Islam and Christianity. Swami Vivekananda confirms that these ideas already exist in each
of those religions. We do not need to extrapolate or re-interpret the words of Christ, Mohammad or
Buddha, which will not be acceptable by their followers at all. This is a job only a Hindu is capable of
doing. The proverbial synthetic intellect of the Hindu will be able to perform this task of
phenomenological study of all religions. But, it requires a powerful Hindu to teach these ideas to other
religions, a powerful Hindu whose heart has opened itself to the touch of the Divine, not a rancorous,
argumentative, name-calling, querulous Hindu who is arrogant with a newly discovered source of
strength in collective numbers.
Can we gauge the immensity of this task? The teachers of this idea to other religions cannot
harbor ill-feelings towards those other religions and expect to impart this education to them! It is
education, not condescension that we are speaking of here. That is the reason we mentioned, even at the
risk of being trolled, that there is an urgent need to temper the forces unleashed in the Hindu society in
recent times. Swami Vivekananda says, “In every nation you will have to work through their methods. To
every man you will have to speak in his own language. Now, in England or in America, if you want to
preach religion to them, you will have to work through political methods — make organizations,
societies, with voting, balloting, a president, and so on, because that is the language, the method of the
Western race. On the other hand, if you want to speak of politics in India, you must speak through the
language of religion. You will have to tell them something like this: ‘The man who cleans his house every
morning will acquire such and such an amount of merit, he will go to heaven, or he comes to God.’
Unless you put it that way, they will not listen to you. It is a question of language. The thing done is the
same. But with every race, you will have to speak their language in order to reach their hearts. And that
is quite just. We need not fret about that.”48
Note the words, ‘There cannot be friendship without equality.’ A weak people cannot stand up
straight in the world platform and expect the world to listen to their voice. A weak people can at best cry
and weep about oppression and exploitation, which is what we have done for the last 1000 years. We
have now, as a people, regained our strength. Do we locate this new-found strength only in our collective
numbers? Will we be so shortsighted as to believe that our power is only from the physical, communal,
collective source? Will the real Hindu within each of us fail to perceive that the recently manifested
strength, by which we are able to regain our lost respectability in the world polity, is also from the one
and only real source of all strengths, the inner-most divine core of each one of us?
Swami Vivekananda says, Strength, strength is what the Upanishads speak to me from every
page. This is the one great thing to remember, it has been the one great lesson I have been taught in my
life; strength, it says, strength, O man, be not weak. Are there no human weaknesses? – says man. There
48
Complete Works: Vol-8: My life & mission: California, on 27th January 1900
Page 24 of 28
are, say the Upanishads, but will more weakness heal them, would you try to wash dirt with dirt? Will sin
cure sin, weakness cure weakness? Strength, O man, strength, say the Upanishads, stand up and be
strong. Ay, it is the only literature in the world where you find the word ‘Abhih’, ‘fearless’, used again
and again; in no other scripture in the world is this adjective applied either to God or to man, Abhih,
fearless! And in my mind rises from the past the vision of the great Emperor of the West, Alexander the
Great, and I see, as it were in a picture, the great monarch standing on the bank of the Indus, talking to
one of our Sannyasins in the forest; the old man he was talking to, perhaps naked, stark naked, sitting
upon a block of stone, and the Emperor, astonished at his wisdom, tempting him with gold and honor to
come over to Greece. And this man smiles at his gold, and smiles at his temptations, and refuses; and
then the Emperor standing on his authority as an Emperor, says, ‘I will kill you if you do not come’, and
the man bursts into a laugh and says, ‘You never told such a falsehood in your life, as you tell just now.
Who can kill me? Me you kill, Emperor of the material world! Never! For I am Spirit unborn and
undecaying: never was I born and never do I die; I am the Infinite, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient; and
you kill me, child that you are!’ That is strength, that is strength! And the more I read the Upanishads,
my friends, my countrymen, the more I weep for you, for therein is the great practical application.
Strength, strength for us. What we need is strength, who will give us strength? There are thousands to
weaken us, and of stories we have had enough. Every one of our Puranas, if you press it, gives out stories
enough to fill three-fourths of the libraries of the world. Everything that can weaken us as a race we have
had for the last thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in
view, viz how to make us weaker and weaker till we have become real earthworms, crawling at the feet of
every one who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore, my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives
and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time, strength. And the
Upanishads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world;
the whole world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them. They will call with trumpet voice
upon the weak, the miserable, and the downtrodden of all races, all creeds, and all sects to stand on their
feet and be free. Freedom, physical freedom, mental freedom, and spiritual freedom are the watchwords
of the Upanishads.49
So, we need strength; we also need to temper it with this knowledge of the Spirit. Then, this
strength will be a great boon to both ourselves and to the world. In the light of this idea, we can recognize
the value of the recent WHF program, as well as its obvious shortcomings. If this Hindutva movement
doesn’t deepen itself with spirituality and manifest love for all beings, in a few years, it will run out of
steam and lose its relevance to society. Swami Vivekananda has the following words of caution which
seem most relevant in the present developments in our country: …if a religion emphasizes the negative
side too much, it is in danger of eventual destruction. Never can a reforming sect survive if it is only
reforming; the formative elements alone – the real impulse, that is, the principles – lives on and on. After
a reform has been brought about, it is the positive side that should be emphasized; after the building is
finished the scaffolding must be taken away. 50
The Hindutva movement professes its plans to ‘bring back’ to Hinduism all those people living
in India who have converted to Islam or Christianity. The Hindutva movement claims to be backed by
Swami Vivekananda’s exhortations in this regard too. These ideas of the movement are causes of great
concern for the harmony, peace and security in India, which is a multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-
ethnic society. There are three important points to be understood in this regard.
One: A study of Swami Vivekananda’s thoughts clearly shows that he would never support a
forcible ‘bringing back’ of anybody from any religion to Hinduism, just as he would not brook any
49
Complete Works: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: Vedanta in its application to Indian life: delivered at Madras
50
Complete Works: Vol-8: Buddha's message to the World: San Francisco, on 18th March 1900
Page 25 of 28
religion forcibly ‘taking away’ any Hindu into other religions. In other words, ‘Conversion’ and ‘Re-
conversion’ are not something he would support. There is nothing in his recorded works to lend credence
to these ideas. People have to be given complete freedom to choose the religion they want to profess.
This entire idea of ‘bringing back’ or ‘conversion’ is not religion at all. It is a social issue, and hence a
political issue. The time has now come to accord every man the dignity he deserves. In the present social
context, when we have clearly declared that we are a sovereign, democratic republic, why are people still
categorized based on the religion they follow in their personal lives? Can’t all social, political and
economic privileges attached to all religions be removed forthwith in the Indian context? For, religion
really has nothing to do with social, political or economic affairs. To continue to do so is pure mischief.
Two: There are many instances where Swamiji did indeed speak of ‘bringing back Muslims and
Christians back into our folds’. What was the idea? Hinduism must evolve a mechanism of welcoming
people into its fold. These people may be erstwhile Hindus who left the Hindu fold for whatever reason
and now voluntarily wish to come back. Or they may be entirely newcomers who wish to become
Hindus. Swamiji was keenly aware of the fact that a Hindu must be born a Hindu. There are actually no
universally accepted procedures for accepting people afresh into its folds. Why do other religions,
especially proselytizing religions such as Buddhism, Islam and Christianity have such procedures? That
was the organizational genius of their founders! If we are indeed a living, vibrant religion, why won’t we
adopt new corporate, organizational procedures? Swamiji was alluding to this aspect of Hinduism when
he did indeed comment on this issue. But in any case, let us make it clear that it was not out of anger at
other proselytizing religions that he said those things. Nor did he encourage proactive, violent methods of
‘Reconversion’.
Three: Swami Vivekananda certainly endorses ideas of ‘conquering’ others. We saw him
explaining these ideas in England to a reporter named C.S.B of the Indian newspaper in 1896.
“And is India finally to conquer her conquerors?”
Yes, in the world of ideas. England has the sword, the material world, as our Mohammedan
conquerors had before her. Yet Akbar the Great became practically a Hindu; educated Mohammedans,
the Sufis, are hardly to be distinguished from the Hindus; they do not eat beef, and in other ways conform
to our usages. Their thought has become permeated bv ours.
“So, that is the fate you foresee for the lordly Sahib? Just at this moment he seems to be a long
way off it.”
No, it is not so remote as you imply. In the world of religious ideas, the Hindu and the
Englishman have much in common, and there is proof of the same thing among other religious
communities. Where the English ruler or civil servant has had any knowledge of India's literature,
especially her philosophy, there exists the ground of a common sympathy, a territory constantly
widening. It is not too much to say that only ignorance is the cause of that exclusive — sometimes even
contemptuous — attitude assumed by some. 51
But this ‘conquest in the world of ideas’ is not the ‘bringing back’ or ‘conversion’. It is a great
job of educating the people the world over about the essentials of their own religions. It doesn’t matter if
they belong to Hinduism or Islam or Christianity. Can they love God? Can they feel they are divine? Can
51
Page 26 of 28
they feel others are divine too? Can they deal with one another as divine beings do? How do really
spiritual people interact with one another? Take a look at this instance:52
Manmatha Nath Ghosh writes in his reminiscences of Sri Ramakrishna: After I was married I
could not visit the Master, as I had to go here and there looking for a job. At last I secured a position
with Rally Brothers, but my monthly salary was so small that I could not afford to hire a carriage to go to
the office. I had to walk back and forth from our house on Beadon Street to the office in Dharmtala via
Geratala. One evening as I was passing by the Geratala mosque, I heard the loud prayer of a Muslim
fakir: ‘O my beloved, please come! Please come, O my beloved!’ he was repeating this prayer with love
and longing as tears rolled down his cheeks. Suddenly, I saw Sri Ramakrishna climb down from a hired
carriage and rush up to the fakir. The two embraced each other. This incident happened when the Master
was returning from Kalighat after visiting the Divine Mother there. What a wonderful sight it was!
The leaders of this movement ought to listen to the following words of the great Swami from
whom they too claim their descent and inspiration:
Each nation has its own peculiar method of work. Some work through politics, some through
social reforms, and some through other lines. With us, religion is the only ground along which we can
move. The Englishman can understand even religion through politics. Perhaps the American can
understand even religion through social reforms. But the Hindu can understand even politics when it is
given through religion; sociology must come through religion, everything must come through religion.
For that is the theme, the rest are the variations in the national life-music.53
The purpose and intent of what I have to say to you is this, that I have found it possible in my life
to worship all of them, and to be ready for all that are yet to come. A mother recognizes her son in any
dress in which he may appear before her; and if one does not do so, I am sure she is not the mother of
that man. Now, as regards those of you that think that you understand Truth and Divinity and God in
only one Prophet in the world, and not in any other, naturally, the conclusion which I draw is that you do
not understand Divinity in anybody; you have simply swallowed words and identified yourself with one
sect, just as you would in party politics, as a matter of opinion; but that is no religion at all. There are
some fools in this world who use brackish water although there is excellent sweet water nearby, because,
they say, the brackish-water well was dug by their father. Now, in my little experience I have collected
this knowledge – that for all the devilry that religion is blamed with, religion is not at all in fault: no
religion ever persecuted men, no religion ever burnt witches, no religion ever did any of these things.
What then incited people to do these things? Politics, but never religion; and if such politics takes the
name of religion, whose fault is that?54
So, when each man stands and says ‘My Prophet is the only true Prophet,’ he is not correct – he
knows not the alpha of religion. Religion is neither talk, nor theory, nor intellectual consent. It is
realization in the heart of our hearts; it is touching God; it is feeling, realizing that I am a spirit in
relation with the Universal Spirit and all Its great manifestations. If you have really entered the house of
the Father, how can you have seen His children and not known them? And if you do not recognize them,
you have not entered the house of the Father. The mother recognizes her child in any dress and knows
him however disguised. Recognize all the great, spiritual men and women in every age and country, and
see that they are not really at variance with one another. Wherever there has been actual religion – this
touch of the Divine, the soul coming in direct sense-contact with the Divine – there has always been a
broadening of the mind which enables it to see the light everywhere. Now, some Mohammedans are the
52
Ramakrishna as we saw him: Ed: Swami Chetanananda: Advaita Ashrama: Pg: 372
53
Complete Works: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: Calcutta Lecture
54
Complete Works: Vol-4: The Great Teachers of the World: California, 3rd February 1900
Page 27 of 28
crudest in this respect, and the most sectarian. Their watchword is: ‘There is one God, and Mohammed
is His Prophet.’ Everything beyond that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith; at a moment’s
notice, every man or woman who does not exactly believe in that must be killed; everything that does not
belong to this worship must be immediately broken; every book that teaches anything else must be burnt.
From the Pacific to the Atlantic, for five hundred years blood ran all over the world. That is
Mohammedanism! Nevetheless, among these Mohammedans, wherever there has a philosophic man, he
was sure to protest against these cruelties. In that he showed the touch of the Divine and realized a
fragment of the truth; he was not playing with his religion; for it was not his father's religion he was
talking, but spoke the truth direct like a man.”55
“Could the gist of this mission of yours be summed up in a few words? Is it comparative religion
you want to preach?”
It is really the philosophy of religion, the kernel of all its outward forms. All forms of religion
have an essential and a non-essential part. If we strip from them the latter, there remains the real basis
of all religion, which all forms of religion possess in common. Unity is behind them all. We may call it
God, Allah, Jehovah, the Spirit, Love; it is the same unity that animates all life, from its lowest form to its
noblest manifestation in man. It is on this unity that we need to lay stress, whereas in the West, and
indeed everywhere, it is on the non-essential that men are apt to lay stress. They will fight and kill each
other for these forms, to make their fellows conform. Seeing that the essential is love of God and love of
man, this is curious, to say the least.
“I suppose a Hindu could never persecute.”
He never yet has done so; he is the most tolerant of all the races of men. Considering how
profoundly religious he is, one might have thought that he would persecute those who believe in no God.
The Jains regard such belief as sheer delusion, yet no Jain has ever been persecuted. In India the
Mohammedans were the first who ever took the sword. 56
For our own motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam – Vedanta
brain and Islam body – is the only hope. I see in my mind's eye the future perfect India rising out of this
chaos and strife, glorious and invincible, with Vedanta brain and Islam body.57
Can these words of the great Prophet of the modern age be in vain? We want to lead mankind to
the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by
harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran. Mankind ought to be taught that religions are but the
varied expressions of THE RELIGION, which is Oneness, so that each may choose that path that suits
him best.58
********************
55
ibid
56
57
Complete Works: Vol-6: Epistles: CXLII: to Mohammed Sarfaraz Husain on 10th June, 1898
58
ibid
Page 28 of 28

Swamiji's Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications

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Swamiji's Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications

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Swamiji’s message at Chicago Parliament – its implications

Swamiji’s message at the Parliament of Religions – its implications

The reason for raising this issue is two-fold.

The actual event:

The gist of his opening speech4 was as follows:

What actually happened?

The perspective of the message:

Analysis of Swamiji’s message:

Dissociating the essential Hinduism from its non-essentials:

New India, new God, new rituals:

“Is India conscious of the awakening that you allude to?”

Modern arrangement for society & religion in India:

“Where will it end?”

Hindutva as a logical growth in Hinduism:

Hindutva – its limitation: The international mission of Hinduism

Let us recall the following conversations of Swami Vivekananda in this context:34

Religious education – Harmony of Religions:

“And is India finally to conquer her conquerors?”

“I suppose a Hindu could never persecute.”

You might also like

Swamiji&#39;s Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Swamiji&#39;s Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Swamiji’s message at Chicago Parliament – its implications

Swamiji’s message at the Parliament of Religions – its implications

The reason for raising this issue is two-fold.

The actual event:

The gist of his opening speech4 was as follows:

What actually happened?

The perspective of the message:

Analysis of Swamiji’s message:

Dissociating the essential Hinduism from its non-essentials:

New India, new God, new rituals:

“Is India conscious of the awakening that you allude to?”

Modern arrangement for society & religion in India:

“Where will it end?”

Hindutva as a logical growth in Hinduism:

Hindutva – its limitation: The international mission of Hinduism

Let us recall the following conversations of Swami Vivekananda in this context:34

Religious education – Harmony of Religions:

“And is India finally to conquer her conquerors?”

“I suppose a Hindu could never persecute.”

You might also like

Swamiji's Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications

Swamiji's Message at Chicago Parliament - Its Implications