That which exists is One; sages call Him by various names

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THE COMMON BASES OF HINDUISM

Swami Vivekananda

 

On his arrival at Lahore the Swamiji was accorded a grand reception

by the leaders, both of the Arya Samaj and of the Sanatana Dharma

Sabha. During his brief stay in Lahore, Swamiji delivered three

lectures. The first of these was on " The Common Bases of Hinduism " ,

the second on " Bhakti " , and the third one was the famous lecture

on " The Vedanta " . On the first occasion he spoke as follows:

 

This is the land which is held to be the holiest even in holy

Aryavarta; this is the Brahmavarta of which our great Manu speaks.

This is the land from whence arose that mighty aspiration after the

Spirit, ay, which in times to come, as history shows, is to deluge

the world. This is the land where, like its mighty rivers, spiritual

aspirations have arisen and joined their strength, till they

travelled over the length and breadth of the world and declared

themselves with a voice of thunder. This is the land which had first

to bear the brunt of all inroads and invasions into India; this

heroic land had first to bare its bosom to every onslaught of the

outer barbarians into Aryavarta. This is the land which, after all

its sufferings, has not yet entirely lost its glory and its

strength. Here it was that in later times the gentle Nanak preached

his marvellous love for the world. Here it was that his broad heart

was opened and his arms outstretched to embrace the whole world, not

only of Hindus, but of Mohammedans too. Here it was that one of the

last and one of the most glorious heroes of our race, Guru Govinda

Singh, after shedding his blood and that of his dearest and nearest

for the cause of religion, even when deserted by those for whom this

blood was shed, retired into the South to die like a wounded lion

struck to the heart, without a word against his country, without a

single word of murmur.

 

Here, in this ancient land of ours, children of the land of five

rivers, I stand before you, not as a teacher, for I know very little

to teach, but as one who has come from the east to exchange words of

greeting with the brothers of the west, to compare notes. Here am I,

not to find out differences that exist among us, but to find where

we agree. Here am I trying to understand on what ground we may

always remain brothers, upon what foundations the voice that has

spoken from eternity may become stronger and stronger as it grows.

Here am I trying to propose to you something of constructive work

and not destructive. For criticism the days are past, and we are

waiting for constructive work. The world needs, at times, criticisms

even fierce ones; but that is only for a time, and the work for

eternity is progress and construction, and not criticism and

destruction. For the last hundred years or so, there has been a

flood of criticism all over this land of ours, where the full play

of Western science has been let loose upon all the dark spots, and

as a result the corners and the holes have become much more

prominent than anything else. Naturally enough there arose mighty

intellects all over the land, great and glorious, with the love of

truth and justice in their hearts, with the love of their country,

and above all, an intense love for their religion and their God; and

because these mighty souls felt so deeply, because they loved so

deeply, they criticised everything they thought was wrong. Glory

unto these mighty spirits of the past! They have done so much good;

but the voice of the present day is coming to us, telling, " Enough! "

There has been enough of criticism, there has been enough of fault-

finding, the time has come for the rebuilding, the reconstructing;

the time has come for us to gather all our scattered forces, to

concentrate them into one focus, and through that, to lead the

nation on its onward march, which for centuries almost has been

stopped. The house has been cleansed; let it be inhabited anew. The

road has been cleared. March ahead, children of the Aryans!

 

Gentlemen, this is the motive that brings me before you, and at the

start I may declare to you that I belong to no party and no sect.

They are all great and glorious to me, I love them all, and all my

life I have been attempting to find what is good and true in them.

Therefore, it is my proposal tonight to bring before you points

where we are agreed, to find out, if we can, a ground of agreement;

and if through the grace of the Lord such a state of things be

possible, let us take it up, and from theory carry it out into

practice. We are Hindus. I do not use the word Hindu in any bad

sense at all, nor do I agree with those that think there is any bad

meaning in it. In old times, it simply meant people who lived on the

other side of the Indus; today a good many among those who hate us

may have put a bad interpretation upon it, but names are nothing.

Upon us depends whether the name Hindu will stand for everything

that is glorious, everything that is spiritual, or whether it will

remain a name of opprobrium, one designating the downtrodden, the

worthless, the heathen. If at present the word Hindu means anything

bad, never mind; by our action let us be ready to show that this is

the highest word that any language can invent. It has been one of

the principles of my life not to be ashamed of my own ancestors. I

am one of the proudest men ever born, but let me tell you frankly,

it is not for myself, but on account of my ancestry. The more I have

studied the past, the more I have looked back, more and more has

this pride come to me, and it has give me the strength and courage

of conviction, raised me up from the dust of the earth, and set me

working out that great plan laid out by those great ancestors of

ours. Children of those ancient Aryans, through the grace of the

Lord may you have the same pride, may that faith in your ancestors

come into your blood, may it become a part and parcel of your lives,

may it work towards the salvation of the world!

 

Before trying to find out the precise point where we are all agreed,

the common ground of our national life, one thing we must remember.

Just as there is an individuality in every man, so there is a

national individuality. As one man differs from another in certain

particulars, in certain characteristics of his own, so one race

differs from another in certain peculiar characteristics; and just

as it is the mission of every man to fulfil a certain purpose in the

economy of nature, just as there is a particular line set out for

him by his own past Karma, so it is with nations--each nation has a

destiny to fulfil, each nation has a message to deliver, each nation

has a mission to accomplish. Therefore, from the very start, we must

have to understand the mission of our own race, the destiny it has

to fulfil, the place it has to occupy in the march of nations, and

note which it has to contribute to the harmony of races. In our

country, when children, we hear stories how some serpents have

jewels in their heads, and whatever one may do with the serpent, so

long as the jewel is there, the serpent cannot be killed. We hear

stories of giants and ogres who had souls living in certain little

birds, and so long as the bird was safe, there was no power on earth

to kill these giants; you might hack them to pieces, or do what you

liked to them, the giants could not die. So with nations, there is a

certain point where the life of a nation centres, where lies the

nationality of the nation, and until that is touched, the nation

cannot die. In the light of this we can understand the most

marvellous phenomenon that the history of the world has ever known.

Wave after wave of barbarian conquest has rolled over this devoted

land of ours. " Allah Ho Akbar! " has rent the skies for hundreds of

years, and no Hindu knew what moment would be his last. This is the

most suffering and the most subjugated of all the historic lands of

the world. Yet we still stand practically the same race, ready to

face difficulties again and again if necessary; and not only so, of

late there have been signs that we are not only strong, but ready to

go out, for the sign of life is expansion.

 

We find today that our ideas and thoughts are no more cooped up

within the bounds of India, but whether we will it or not, they are

marching outside, filtering into the literature of nations, taking

their place among nations, and in some, even getting a commanding

dictatorial position. Behind this we find the explanation that the

great contribution to the sum total of the world's progress from

India is the greatest, the noblest, the sublimest theme that can

occupy the mind of man--it is philosophy and spirituality. Our

ancestors tried many other things; they, like other nations, first

went to bring out the secrets of external nature as we all know, and

with their gigantic brains that marvellous race could have done

miracles in that line of which the world could have been proud for

ever. But they gave it up for something higher; something better

rings out from the pages of the Vedas: " That science is the greatest

which makes us know Him who never changes! " The science of nature,

changeful, evanescent, the world of death, of woe, of misery, may be

great, great indeed; but the science of Him who changes not, the

Blissful One, where alone is peace, where alone is life eternal,

where alone is perfection, where alone all misery ceases--that,

according to our ancestors, was the sublimest science of all. After

all, sciences that can give us only bread and clothes and power over

our fellowmen, sciences that can teach us only how to conquer our

fellow-beings, to rule over them, which teach the strong to domineer

over the weak--those they could have discovered if they willed. But

praise be unto the Lord, they caught at once the other side, which

was grander, infinitely higher, infinitely more blissful, till it

has become the national characteristic, till it has come down to us,

inherited from father to son for thousands of years, till it has

become a part and parcel of us, till it tingles in every drop of

blood that runs through our veins, till it has become our second

nature, till the name of religion and Hindu have become one. This is

the national characteristic, and this cannot be touched. Barbarians

with sword and fire, barbarians bringing barbarous religions, not

one of them could touch the core, not one could touch the " jewel " ,

not one had the power to kill the " bird " which the soul of the race

inhabited. This, therefore, is the vitality of the race, and so long

as that remains, there is no power under the sun that can kill the

race. All the tortures and miseries of the world will pass over

without hurting us, and we shall come out of the flames like

Prahlada, so long as we hold on to this grandest of all our

inheritances, spirituality. If a Hindu is not spiritual I do not

call him a Hindu. In other countries a man may be political first,

and then he may have a little religion, but here in India the first

and the foremost duty of our lives is to be spiritual first, and

then,if there is time, let other things come. Bearing this in mind

we shall be in a better position to understand why, for our national

welfare, we must first seek out at the present day all the spiritual

forces of the race, as was done in days of yore and will be done in

all times to come. National union in India must be a gathering up of

its scattered spiritual forces. A nation in India must be a union of

those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune.

 

There have been sects enough in this country. There are sects

enough, and there will be enough in the future, because this has

been the peculiarity of our religion that in abstract principles so

much latitude has been given that, although afterwards so much

detail has been worked out, all these details are the working out of

principles, broad as the skies above our heads, eternal as nature

herself. Sects, therefore, as a matter of course, must exist here,

but what need not exist is sectarian quarrel. Sects must be, but

sectarianism need not. The world would not be the better for

sectarianism, but the world cannot move on without having sects. One

set of men cannot do everything. The almost infinite mass of energy

in the world cannot be managed by a small number of people. Here, at

once we see the necessity that forced this division of labour upon

us--the division into sects. For the use of spiritual forces let

there be sects; but is there any need that we should quarrel when

our most ancient books declare that this differentiation is only

apparent, that in spite of all these differences there is a thread

of harmony, that beautiful unity, running through them all? Our most

ancient books have declared: " That which exists is One; sages call

Him by various names. " Therefore, if there are these sectarian

struggles, if there are these fights among the different sects, if

there is jealousy and hatred between the different sects in India,

the land where all sects have always been honoured, it is a shame on

us who dare to call ourselves the descendants of those fathers.

 

There are certain great principles in which, I think, we--whether

Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Shaktas, or Ganapatyas, whether belonging to

the ancient Vedantists or the modern ones, whether belonging to the

old rigid sects or the modern reformed ones--are all one, and

whoever calls himself a Hindu, believes in these principles. Of

course there is a difference in the interpretation, in the

explanation of these principles, and that difference should be

there, and it should be allowed, for our standard is not to bind

every man down to our position. It would be a sin to force every man

to work out our own interpretation of things, and to live by our own

methods. Perhaps all who are here will agree on the first point that

we believe the Vedas to be the eternal teachings of the secrets of

religion. We all believe that this holy literature is without

beginning and without end, coeval with nature, which is without

beginning and without end; and that all our religious differences,

all our religious struggles must end when we stand in the presence

of that holy book; we are all agreed that this is the last court of

appeal in all our spiritual differences. We may take different

points of view as to what the Vedas are. There may be one sect which

regards one portion as more sacred than another, but that matters

little so long as we say that we are all brothers in the Vedas, that

out of these venerable, eternal, marvellous books has come

everything that we possess today, good, holy, and pure. Well,

therefore, if we believe in all this, let this principle first of

all be preached broadcast throughout the length and breadth of the

land. If this be true, let the Vedas have that prominence which they

always deserve, and which we all believe in. First, then, the Vedas.

The second point we all believe in is God, the creating, the

preserving power of the whole universe, and unto whom it

periodically returns to come out at other periods and manifest this

wonderful phenomenon, called the universe. We may differ as to our

conception of God. One may believe in a God who is entirely

personal, another may believe in a God who is personal and yet not

human, and yet another may believe in a God who is entirely

impersonal, and all may get their support from the Vedas. Still we

are all believers in God; that is to say, that man who does not

believe in a most marvellous infinite Power from which everything

has come, in which everything lives, and to which everything must in

the end return, cannot be called a Hindu. If that be so, let us try

to preach that idea all over the land. Preach whatever conception

you have to give, there is no difference, we are not going to fight

over it, but preach God; that is all we want. One idea may be better

than another, but, mind you, not one of them is bad. One is good,

another is better, and again another may be the best, but the word

bad does not enter the category of our religion. Therefore, may the

Lord bless them all who preach the name of God in whatever form they

like! The more He is preached, the better for this race. Let our

children be brought up in this idea, let this idea enter the homes

of the poorest and the lowest, as well as of the richest and the

highest--the idea of the name of God.

 

The third idea that I will present before you is that, unlike all

other races of the world, we do not believe that this world was

created only so many thousand years ago, and is going to be

destroyed eternally on a certain day. Nor do we believe that the

human soul has been created along with this universe just out of

nothing. Here is another point I think we are all able to agree

upon. We believe in nature being without beginning and without end;

only at psychological periods this gross material of the outer

universe goes back to its finer state, thus to remain for a certain

period, again to be projected outside to manifest all this infinite

panorama we call nature. This wavelike motion was going on even

before time began, through eternity, and will remain for an infinite

period of time.

 

Next, all Hindus believe that man is not only a gross material body;

not only that within this there is the finer body, the mind, but

there is something yet greater--for the body changes and so does the

mind--something beyond, the Atman--I cannot translate the word to

you for any translation will be wrong--that there is something

beyond even this fine body, which is the Atman of man, which has

neither beginning nor end, which knows not what death is. And then

this peculiar idea, different from that of all other races of men,

that this Atman inhabits body after body until there is no more

interest for it to continue to do so, and it becomes free, not to be

born again, I refer to the theory of Samsara and the theory of

eternal souls taught by our Shastras. This is another point where we

all agree, whatever sect we may belong to. There may be differences

as to the relation between the soul and God. According to one sect

the soul may be eternally different from God, according to another

it may be a spark of that infinite fire, yet again according to

others it may be one with that Infinite. It does not matter what our

interpretation is, so long as we hold on to the one basic belief

that the soul is infinite, that this soul was never created, and

therefore will never die, that it had to pass and evolve into

various bodies, till it attained perfection in the human one--in

that we are all agreed. And then comes the most differentiating, the

grandest, and the most wonderful discovery in the realms of

spirituality that has ever been made. Some of you, perhaps, who have

been studying Western thought, may have observed already that there

is another radical difference severing at one stroke all that is

Western from all that is Eastern. It is this that we hold, whether

we are Shaktas, Sauras, or Vaishnavas, even whether we are Bauddhas

or Jainas, we all hold in India that the soul is by its nature pure

and perfect, infinite in power and blessed. Only, according to the

dualist, this natural blissfulness of the soul has become contracted

by past bad work, and through the grace of God it is going to open

out and show its perfection; while according to the monist, even

this idea of contraction is a partial mistake, it is the veil of

Maya that causes us to think the soul has lost its powers, but the

powers are there fully manifest. Whatever the difference may be, we

come to the central core, and there is at once an irreconcilable

difference between all that is Western and Eastern. The Eastern is

looking inward for all that is great and good. When we worship, we

close our eyes and try to find God within. The Western is looking up

outside for his God. To the Western their religious books have been

inspired, while with us our books have been expired; breath-like

they came, the breath of God, out of the hearts of sages they

sprang, the Mantra-drashtas.

 

This is one great point to understand, and, my friends, my brethren,

let me tell you, this is the one point we shall have to insist upon

in the future. For I am firmly convinced, and I beg you to

understand this one fact--no good comes out of the man who day and

night thinks he is nobody. If a man, day and night, thinks he is

miserable, low, and nothing, nothing he becomes. If you say, yea,

yea, " I am, I am " , so shall you be; and if you say " I am not " , think

that you are not, and day and night meditate upon the fact that you

are nothing, ay, nothing shall you be. That is the great fact which

you ought to remember. We are the children of the Almighty, we are

sparks of the infinite, divine fire. How can we be nothings? We are

everything, ready to do everything, we can do everything, and man

must do everything. This faith in themselves was in the hearts of

our ancestors, this faith in themselves was the motive power that

pushed them forward and forward in the march of civilisation; and if

there has been degeneration, if there has been defect, mark my

words, you will find that degradation to have started on the day our

people lost this faith in themselves. Losing faith in one's self

means losing faith in God. Do you believe in that infinite, good

Providence working in and through you? If you believe that this

Omnipresent One, the Antaryamin, is present in every atom, is

through and through, Ota-prota, as the Sanskrit word goes,

penetrating your body, mind and soul, how can you lose heart? I may

be a little bubble of water, and you may be a mountain-high wave.

Never mind! The infinite ocean is the background of me as well as of

you. Mine also is that infinite ocean of life, of power, of

spirituality, as well as yours. I am already joined--from my very

birth, from the very fact of my life--I am in Yoga with that

infinite life and infinite goodness and infinite power, as you are,

mountain-high though you may be. Therefore, my brethren, teach this

life-saving, great, ennobling, grand doctrine to your children, even

from their very birth. You need not teach them Advaitism; teach them

Dvaitism, or any " ism " you please, but we have seen that this is the

common " ism " all through India; this marvellous doctrine of the

soul, the perfection of the soul, is commonly believed in by all

sects. As says our great philosopher Kapila, if purity has not been

the nature of the soul, it can never attain purity afterwards, for

anything that was not perfect by nature, even if it attained to

perfection, that perfection would go away again. If impurity is the

nature of man, then man will have to remain impure, even though he

may be pure for five minutes. The time will come when this purity

will wash out, pass away, and the old natural impurity will have its

sway once more. Therefore, say all our philosophers, good is our

nature, perfection is our nature, not imperfection, not impurity--

and we should remember that. Remember the beautiful example of the

great sage who, when he was dying, asked his mind to remember all

his mighty deeds and all his mighty thoughts. There you do not find

that he was teaching his mind to remember all his weaknesses and all

his follies. Follies there are, weakness there must be, but remember

your real nature always--that is the only way to cure the weakness,

that is the only way to cure the follies.

 

It seems that these few points are common among all the various

religious sects in India, and perhaps in future upon this common

platform, conservative and liberal religionists, old type and new

type, may shake hands. Above all, there is another thing to

remember, which I am sorry we forget from time to time, that

religion, in India, means realisation and nothing short of

that. " Believe in the doctrine, and you are safe " , can never be

taught to us, for we do not believe in that. You are what you make

yourselves. You are, by the grace of God and your own exertions,

what you are. Mere believing in certain theories and doctrines will

not help you much. The mighty word that came out from the sky of

spirituality in India was Anubhuti, realisation, and ours are the

only books which declare again and again: " The Lord is to be seen " .

Bold, brave words indeed, but true to their very core; every sound,

every vibration is true. Religion is to be realised, not only heard;

it is not in learning some doctrine like a parrot. Neither is it

mere intellectual assent--that is nothing; but it must come into us.

Ay, and therefore the greatest proof that we have of the existence

of a God is not because our reason says so, but because God has been

seen by the ancients as well as by the moderns. We believe in the

soul not only because there are good reasons to prove its existence,

but, above all, because there have been in the past thousands in

India, there are still many who have realised, and there will be

thousands in the future who will realise and see their own souls.

And there is no salvation for man until he sees God, realises his

own soul. Therefore, above all, let us understand this, and the more

we understand it the less we shall have of sectarianism in India,

for it is only that man who has realised God and seen Him, who is

religious. In him the knots have been cut asunder, in him alone the

doubts have subsided; he alone has become free from the fruits of

action who has seen Him who is nearest of the near and farthest of

the far. Ay, we often mistake mere prattle for religious truth, mere

intellectual perorations for great spiritual realisation, and then

comes sectarianism, then comes fight. If we once understand that

this realisation is the only religion, we shall look into our own

hearts and find how far we are towards realising the truths of

religion. Then we shall understand that we ourselves are groping in

darkness, and are leading others to grope in the same darkness, then

we shall cease from sectarianism, quarrel, and fight. Ask a man who

wants to start a sectarian fight, " Have you seen God? Have you seen

the Atman? If you have not, what right have you to preach His name--

you walking in darkness trying to lead me into the same darkness--

the blind leading the blind, and both falling into the ditch? "

 

Therefore, take more thought before you go and find fault with

others. Let them follow their own path to realisation so long as

they struggle to see truth in their own hearts; and when the broad,

naked truth will be seen, then they will find that wonderful

blissfulness which marvellously enough has been testified to by

every seer in India, by every one who has realised the truth. Then

words of love alone will come out of that heart, for it has already

been touched by Him who is the essence of Love Himself. Then and

then alone, all sectarian quarrels will cease, and we shall be in a

position to understand, to bring to our hearts, to embrace, to

intensely love the very word Hindu and every one who bears that

name. Mark me, then and then alone you are a Hindu when the very

name sends through you a galvanic shock of strength. Then and then

alone you are a Hindu when every man who bears the name, from any

country, speaking our language or any other language, becomes at

once the nearest and the dearest to you. Then and then alone you are

a Hindu when the distress of anyone bearing that name comes to your

heart and makes you feel as if your own son were in distress. Then

and then alone you are a Hindu when you will be ready to bear

everything for them, like the great example I have quoted at the

beginning of this lecture, of your great Guru Govind Singh. Driven

out from this country, fighting against its oppressors, after having

shed his own blood for the defence of the Hindu religion, after

having seen his children killed on the battlefield--ay, this example

of the great Guru, left even by those for whose sake he was shedding

his blood and the blood of his own nearest and dearest--he, the

wounded lion, retired from the field calmly to die in the South, but

not a word of curse escaped his lips against those who had

ungratefully forsaken him! Mark me, every one of you will have to be

a Govind Singh, if you want to do good to your country. You may see

thousands of defects in your countrymen, but mark their Hindu blood.

They are the first Gods you will have to worship even if they do

everything to hurt you, even if everyone of them send out a curse to

you, you send out to them words of love. If they drive you out,

retire to die in silence like that mighty lion, Govind Singh. Such a

man is worthy of the name of Hindu; such an ideal ought to be before

us always. All our hatchets let us bury; send out this grand current

of love all round.

 

Let them talk of India's regeneration as they like. Let me tell you

as one who has been working--at least trying to work--all his life,

that there is no regeneration for India until you be spiritual. Not

only so, but upon it depends the welfare of the whole world. For I

must tell you frankly that the very foundations of Western

civilisation have been shaken to their base. The mightiest

buildings, if built upon the loose sand foundations of materialism,

must come to grief one day, must totter to their destruction some

day. The history of the world is our witness. Nation after nation

has arisen and based its greatness upon materialism, declaring man

was all matter. Ay, in Western language, a man gives up the ghost,

but in our language a man gives up his body. The Western man is a

body first, and then he has a soul; with us a man is a soul and

spirit, and he has a body. Therein lies a world of difference. All

such civilisations, therefore, as have been based upon such sand

foundations as material comfort and all that, have disappeared one

after another, after short lives, from the face of the world; but

the civilisation of India and the other nations that have stood at

India's feet to listen and learn, namely Japan and China, live even

to the present day, and there are signs even of revival among them.

Their lives are like that of the Phoenix, a thousand times

destroyed, but ready to spring up again more glorious. But a

materialistic civilisation once dashed down, never can come up

again; that building once thrown down is broken into pieces once for

all. Therefore have patience and wait, the future is in store for

us.

 

Do not be in a hurry, do not go out to imitate anybody else. This is

another great lesson we have to remember; imitation is not

civilisation. I may deck myself out in a Raja's dress, but will that

make me a Raja? An ass in a lion's skin never makes a lion.

Imitation, cowardly imitation, never makes for progress. It is

verily the sign of awful degradation in a man. Ay, when a man has

begun to hate himself, then the last blow has come. When a man has

begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come. Here am I,

one of the least of the Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of

my ancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I

am one of your unworthy servants. I am proud that I am a countryman

of yours, you the descendants of the sages, you the descendants of

the most glorious Rishis the world ever saw. Therefore have faith in

yourselves, be proud of your ancestors, instead of being ashamed of

them. And do not imitate, do not imitate! Whenever you are under the

thumb of others, you lose your own independence. If you are working,

even in spiritual things, at the dictation of others, slowly you

lose all faculty, even of thought. Bring out through your own

exertions what you have, but do not imitate, yet take what is good

from others. We have to learn from others. You put the seed in the

ground, and give it plenty of earth, and air, and water to feed

upon; when the seed grows into the plant and into a gigantic tree,

does it become the earth, does it become the air, or does it become

the water? It becomes the mighty plant, the mighty tree, after its

own nature, having absorbed everything that was given to it. Let

that be your position. We have indeed many things to learn from

others, yea, that man who refuses to learn is already dead. Declares

our Manu: " Take the jewel of a woman for your wife, though she be of

inferior descent. Learn supreme knowledge with service even from the

man of low birth; and even from the Chandala, learn by serving him

the way to salvation. " Learn everything that is good from others,

but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become

others. Do not be dragged away out of this Indian life; do not for a

moment think that it would be better for India if all the Indians

dressed, ate, and behaved like another race. You know the difficulty

of giving up a habit of a few years. The Lord knows how many

thousands of years are in your blood; this national specialised life

has been flowing in one way, the Lord knows for how many thousands

of years; and do you mean to say that that mighty stream, which has

nearly reached its ocean, can go back to the snows of its Himalayas

again? That is impossible! The struggle to do so would only break

it. Therefore, make way for the life-current of the nation. Take

away the blocks that bar the way to the progress of this mighty

river, cleanse its path, clear the channel, and out it will rush by

its own natural impulse, and the nation will go on careering and

progressing.

 

These are the lines which I beg to suggest to you for spiritual work

in India. There are many other great problems which, for want of

time, I cannot bring before you this night. For instance, there is

the wonderful question of caste. I have been studying this question,

its pros and cons, all my life; I have studied it in nearly every

province in India. I have mixed with people of all castes in nearly

every part of the country, and I am too bewildered in my own mind to

grasp even the very significance of it. The more I try to study it,

the more I get bewildered. Still at last I find that a little

glimmer of light is before me, I begin to feel its significance just

now. Then there is the other great problem about eating and

drinking. That is a great problem indeed. It is not so useless a

thing as we generally think. I have come to the conclusion that the

insistence which we make now about eating and drinking is most

curious and is just going against what the Shastras required, that

is to say, we come to grief by neglecting the proper purity of the

food we eat and drink; we have lost the true spirit of it.

 

There are several other questions which I want to bring before you

and show how these problems can be solved, how to work out the

ideas; but unfortunately the meeting could not come to order until

very late, and I do not wish to detain you any longer now. I will,

therefore, keep my ideas about caste and other things for a future

occasion.

 

Now, one word more and I will finish about these spiritual ideas.

Religion for a long time has come to be static in India. What we

want is to make it dynamic. I want it to be brought into the life of

everybody. Religion, as it always has been in the past, must enter

the palaces of kings as well as the homes of the poorest peasants in

the land. Religion, the common inheritance, the universal birthright

of the race, must be brought free to the door of everybody. Religion

in India must be made as free and as easy of access as is God's air.

And this is the kind of work we have to bring about in India, but

not by getting up little sects and fighting on points of difference.

Let us preach where we all agree and leave the differences to remedy

themselves. As I have said to the Indian people again and again, if

there is the darkness of centuries in a room and we go into the room

and begin to cry, " Oh, it is dark, it is dark! " , will the darkness

go? Bring in the light and the darkness will vanish at once. This is

the secret of reforming men. Suggest to them higher things; believe

in man first. Why start with the belief that man is degraded and

degenerated? I have never failed in my faith in man in any case,

even taking him at his worst. Wherever I had faith in man, though at

first the prospect was not always bright, yet it triumphed in the

long run. Have faith in man, whether he appears to you to be a very

learned one or a most ignorant one. Have faith in man, whether he

appears to be an angel or the very devil himself. Have faith in man

first, and then having faith in him, believe that if there are

defects in him, if he makes mistakes, if he embraces the crudest and

the vilest doctrines, believe that it is not from his real nature

that they come, but from the want of higher ideals. If a man goes

towards what is false, it is because he cannot get what is true.

Therefore the only method of correcting what is false is by

supplying him with what is true. Do this, and let him compare. You

give him the truth, and there your work is done. Let him compare it

in his own mind with what he has already in him; and, mark my words,

if you have really given him the truth, the false must vanish, light

must dispel darkness, and truth will bring the good out. This is the

way if you want to reform the country spiritually; this is the way,

and not fighting, not even telling people that what they are doing

is bad. Put the good before them, see how eagerly they take it, see

how the divine that never dies, that is always living in the human,

comes up awakened and stretches out its hand for all that is good,

and all that is glorious.

 

May He who is the Creator, the Preserver, and the Protector of our

race, the God of our forefathers, whether called by the name of

Vishnu, or Shiva, or Shakti, or Ganapati, whether He is worshipped

as Saguna or Nirguna, whether He is worshipped as personal or as

impersonal may He whom our forefathers knew and addressed by the

words, - " That which exists is One; sages call Him by various names " --

may He enter into us with His mighty love, may He shower His

blessings on us, may He make us understand each other, may He make

us work for each other with real love, with intense love for truth,

and may not the least desire for our own personal fame, our own

personal prestige, our own personal advantage, enter into this great

work of the spiritual regeneration of India!

 

THE COMMON BASES OF HINDUISM

Swami Vivekananda