Vivekananda on Vedas - (part 5)

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We are presenting the following work by Sister Gayatriprana.

Your comments are welcome. Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 were posted earlier this is part

5. jay..Vivekananda Centre London

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 5

 

This rather formidable list is an attempt to cover all possible bases of human

knowledge and experience. It is not one which I preconceived and imposed on the

materials, but rather the algorithm, as you might say, which emerged from the

data when it was all put together. Its validity and applicability are questions

too recondite to be entered into here - that task will be tackled elsewhere. For

the moment, I put it on record as a set of criteria of inclusiveness and

completeness with which I have evaluated and developed this compilation. Once

discovered, I consciously applied it to the final selection and overall

organization of the materials, trying to give East and West due representation

in the commentaries, as also each of the four yogas, "this" and "the other"

worlds, evolution and involution; and finally, occasional passages of Swami

Vivekananda’s poetry which, I felt, encapsulate the very essence of his

commentary on a particular mantra.

This attempt at inclusiveness and wholeness has necessarily meant the

utilization of materials which are not, at first sight, strictly quotes or

comments directly on the Upanisads. The bulk of such material was delivered in

the West, where Swami Vivekananda was much more freewheeling in his translations

and interpretations of the Vedantic texts than he was in India. Fortunately,

there are several Western lectures from 1896 explicitly on individual Upanisads

which provide a baseline for Swami Vivekananda’s handling of Upanisadic mantras.

>From his renditions there we can extrapolate to other materials, especially the

copious California lectures of 1900, where the swami "took off", as it were,

into radically new dimensions with fascinating new angles on his Vedantic

commentaries. Again, in some mantras, we find that Swamiji, in his definite

commentaries on the Upanishads establishes certain coinages of his own - such as

soul of our souls in Kena Upanisad, v.4, or work for work’s sake in Gita 2.47,

which have such a life of their own that I have included a few other passages

containing them, even if not strictly related to a commentary on the Upanisads.

The thinking here was to highlight and underscore the swami’s line of thought,

always in the framework of our search for the total picture of Swami

Vivekananda’s own version of Vedanta. Again, probably as part and parcel of his

holistic approach, possibly because he was almost always quoting off the cuff,

Swami Vivekananda not infrequently blends two Upanisadic mantras into one, or

combines an Upanisadic mantra with another text, such as Sri Sankara’s

Vivekacudamani or Nirvanasatkam. Where such an amalgamation has occurred, I

mention the fact and use the materials in both of the sources.

 

 

d) The Broad Picture: Swami Vivekananda’s Introduction to the Vedas

 

Having laid out the materials according to all of these criteria, I clearly saw

that Swami Vivekananda’s "commentaries" are power-packed, often

counterintuitive, even controversial. Perhaps the main reason for this

impression is that he deals so often with what has traditionally been considered

"secular" concerns, flying in the face of traditional religious discourse. He

thus sets up a powerful voltage between the conservative religious tradition and

his deep concern with the burning problems of the contemporary world.

 

So strong was this sense of tension in the commentaries that I decided to embark

on a compilation of Swami Vivekananda’s general remarks on the Vedas and

Upanisads. I thought that this would provide, in a less aphoristic way than in

the commentaries themselves, his basic approach to Vedanta and how he integrates

it with the contemporary world. I discovered huge amounts of material which, I

felt, lent itself to presentation as a historical narrative in what I have

called The Introduction. There Swami Vivekananda traces Vedanta from its origin

with the Vedic seers and the culture that supported them to Buddha, Sri

Sankaracarya, and on to the present day. Laying out the basic tenets of Vedanta

on God, humanity and the world as well as its characteristic practices for

developing a spiritual approach to life, the Introduction traces how different

emphases and interpretations emerged in response to the unfolding historical

process. In particular, the introductory materials bring out the problems and

conditions of the modern world, and just how Sri Ramakrishna and Swami

Vivekananda propose to address them and mold them to the Vedantic paradigm.

 

to be continued.....