Vaishnavas of India - by Swami Abhedananda.

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Dear Member-devotees:

 

Hari Aum:

 

Reproducing below an article published in Samooha Vani - May-June

2005 issue. The same is written by Kali Prasad Chandra-Pre-monastic

name (Swami Abhedananda-Monastic name) and published in India and Her

People in the year 1902.

 

Swami Abhedananda was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and was a

great follower of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. His biographical details are

available from The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta.

 

Members may find it interesting!

 

 

 

NR Pillai (Raju)

 

 

This article published in India and Her People – 1902 issue.

 

 

VAISHNAVAS OF INDIA

(Swami Abhedananda)

 

The Hindus regard Krishna as the ideal incarnation of Divine Love.

His mission was to establish Divine Love on this earth and to show

that it can be manifested through all sanctified human relations.

What Krishna has done in India and how He impressed the minds of the

people, we cannot understand here. We must go to India to see that,

we must go to Mathura where Krishna was born or to Vrindavan where

He played as a shepherd-boy , to find how the Vaishnavas revere and

worship Him. The worship and devotion which we see today in India

cannot be found in any other part of the world. I have traveled

through many countries in Europe and almost all over the United

States and Canada but I have not seen the pathos, the spiritual fire

that I have found among the Vaishnavas in India. God can be

worshipped not only as the Master but also as a friend, as a child,

as a husband – that is what they teach. They bring Him closer and

closer and make Him the closest and nearest to our being. Time will

not permit me to go into the details of the method of worship which

these Vaishnavas practice, but I can at tell you that there are

thousands and thousands of Hindu women who look upon Krishna, the

Saviour of mankind, as their own child. They do not care for a human

child, they want God as their child and they consider themselves as

the mother of Divinity. This is a unique thing. The mother of God!

How much purity is required to make a woman think of herself as the

mother of Divinity or of a Divine Incarnation! And this is their

ideal. I am not exaggerating, I have seen with my eyes such

wonderful characters and have seen them nowhere else except in India.

 

These Vaishnavas or worshippers of Krishna can be subdivided into

seven different denominations, The followers of Sankaracharya, the

great preacher and commentator of monistic Vedanta, the followers of

Ramanuja, another great preacher and commentator, who lived in the

Southern part of India and whose followers are known aas qualified

non-dualists, the followers of Madhvacharya, the preacher of the

dualistic school, as the followers of Chaitanya, of Ballavacharya, of

Ramananda and of Nimbacharya. Each of these was an ideal prophet,

spiritual leader and commentator on the philosophy of Vedanta, as

also the founder of a denomination which still has millions of

followers all over the country. They differ only in the minor

pecularities of their doctrines, beliefs and modes of worship, but

they all agree on one point, that Krishna was the greatest of all

Divine Incarnations, that He was the Saviour of mankind and the

redeemer of the world.

 

The worshippers of Krishna and of Vishnu or Rama are all vegetarians,

they do not touch meat because non-killing is their ideal. They

cannot kill any animal for food. They never drink any intoxicating

liquor, neither the men nor the women. That is a very difficult

thing to find anywhere else. They practice non-resistance of evil

which was taught not only by Krishna but also by Buddha and

afterwards by Christ. Their religion makes them loving, not only to

human beings but also to all living creatures and are pure and chase

in their morals. They practice disinterested love for humanity, they

will sacrifice everything for the good of others because their ideal,

their Master, was the sin-atoning Krishna, who sacrificed everything

for the good of the world. There are no caste distinctions among the

Vaishnavas. Mohammedans and Pariahs have often been followers of

this faith. Krishna has indeed given to earnest and sincere souls

among the Hindus what Jesus the Christ has given to Christiandom and

there is a great similarity in the belief and mode of worship of the

Vaishnavas and those of the most devout followers of Jesus.

 

 

 

(Courtesy: Samooha Vaani: May-June 2005).

 

 

Dombivli.