Interviews With Swami Vivekananda: INDIA'S MISSION

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Posted by: " Bhakta Dhruva " bhakta_dhruva

 

Interviews With Swami Vivekananda: INDIA'S MISSION (Sunday Times,

London, 1896)

 

English people are well acquainted with the fact that they send missionaries to

India's " coral strands " . Indeed, so thoroughly do they obey the behest, " Go ye

forth into all the world and preach the

Gospel " , that none of the chief British sects are behindhand in obedience to the

call to spread Christ's teaching. People are not so well aware that India also

sends missionaries to England.

 

By accident, if the term may be allowed, I fell across

 

the Swami Vivekananda in his temporary home at 63 St. George's Road, S. W., and

as he did not object to discuss the nature of his work and visit to England, I

sought him there and began our talk with an expression of surprise at his assent

to my request.

 

" I got thoroughly used to the interviewer in America. Because it is not the

fashion in my country, that is no reason why I should not use means existing in

any country I visit, for spreading what I desire to be known! There I was

representative of the Hindu religion at the World's Parliament of Religions at

Chicago in 1893. The Raja of Mysore and some other friends sent me there. I

think I may lay claim to having had some success in America. I had many

invitations to other great American cities besides Chicago; my visit was a very

long one, for, with the exception of a visit to England last summer,

repeated as you see this year, I remained about three years in America. The

American civilisation is, in my opinion. a very great one. I find the American

mind peculiarly susceptible to new ideas; nothing is rejected because it is new.

It is examined on its own merits, and stands or falls by these alone. "

 

" Whereas in England — you mean to imply something? "

 

" Yes, in England, civilisation is older, it has gathered many

accretions as the centuries have rolled on. In particular, you have many

prejudices that need to be broken through, and whoever deals with you in ideas

must lay this to his account. "

 

" So they say. I gather that you did not found anything like a church or a new

religion in America. "

 

" That is true. It is contrary to our principles to multiply

organizations, since, in all conscience, there are enough of them. And when

organizations are created they need individuals to look after them. Now, those

who have made Sannyâsa — that is, renunciation of all worldly position,

property, and name — whose aim is to seek spiritual knowledge, cannot undertake

this work, which is, besides, in other hands. "

 

" Is your teaching a system of comparative religion? "

 

" It might convey a more definite idea to call it the kernel of all

forms of religion, stripping from them the non-essential, and laying stress on

that which is the real basis. I am a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a

perfect Sannyasin whose influence and ideas I fell under. This great Sannyasin

never assumed the negative or critical attitude towards other religions, but

showed their positive side — how they could be carried into life and practiced.

To fight, to assume the antagonistic attitude, is the exact contrary of his

teaching, which dwells on the truth that the world is moved by love. You know

that the Hindu religion never persecutes. It is the land where all sects may

live in peace and amity. The Mohammedans brought murder and slaughter in their

train, but until their arrival peace prevailed. Thus the Jains, who do not

believe in a God and who regard such belief as a delusion, were tolerated, and

still are there today. India sets the example of real strength, that is

meekness. Dash, pluck, fight, all these things are weakness. "

 

" It sounds very like Tolstoy's doctrine; it may do for individuals,

though personally I doubt it. But how will it answer for nations? "

 

" Admirably for them also. It was India's Karma, her fate, to be

conquered, and in her turn, to conquer her conqueror. She has already done so

with her Mohammedan victors: Educated Mohammedans are Sufis, scarcely to be

distinguished from Hindus. Hindu thought has permeated their civilisation; they

assumed the position of learners. The great Akbar, the Mogul Emperor, was

practically a Hindu. And England will be conquered in her turn. Today she has

the sword, but it is worse than useless in the world of ideas. You know what

Schopenhauer said of Indian thought. He foretold that its influence would be as

momentous in Europe, when it became well known, as the revival of Greek and

Latin; culture after the Dark Ages. "

 

" Excuse me saying that there do not seem many signs; of it just

now. "

 

" Perhaps not " , said the Swami, gravely. " I dare say a good

many people saw no signs of the old Renaissance and did not know it was there,

even after it had come. But there is a great movement, which can be discerned by

those who know the signs of the times. Oriental research has of recent years

made great progress. At present it is in the hands of scholars, and it seems dry

and heavy in the work they have achieved. But gradually the light of

comprehension will break "

 

" And India is to be the great conqueror of the future? Yet she does not send out

many missionaries to preach her ideas. I presume she will wait until the world

comes to her feet? "

 

" India was once a great missionary power. Hundreds' of years before

England was converted to Christianity, Buddha sent out missionaries to convert

the world of Asia to his doctrine. The world of thought is being converted. We

are only at the beginning as yet. The number of those who decline to adopt any

special form of religion is greatly increasing, and this movement is among the

educated classes. In a recent American census, a large number of persons

declined to class themselves as belonging to any form of religion. All religions

are different expressions of the same truth; all march on or die out.

They are the radii of the same truth, the expression that variety of minds

requires. "

 

" Now we are getting near it. What is that central truth ? "

 

" The Divine within; every being, however degraded, is the expression of the

Divine. The Divinity becomes

 

covered, hidden from view. I call to mind an

incident of the Indian Mutiny. A Swami, who for years had fulfilled a vow of

eternal silence, was stabbed by a Mohammedan. They dragged the murderer before

his victim and cried out, 'Speak the word, Swami, and he shall die.' After many

years of silence, he broke it to say with his last breath: 'My children, you are

all mistaken. That man is God Himself.' The great lesson is, that unity is

behind all. Call it God, Love, Spirit. Allah, Jehovah — it is the same unity

that animates all life from the lowest animal to the noblest man. Picture to

yourself an ocean ice-bound, pierced with many different holes. Each of these is

a soul, a man, emancipated according to his degree of intelligence, essaying to

break through the ice. "

 

" I think I see one difference between the wisdom of the East and that

of the West. You aim at producing very perfect individuals by Sannyasa,

concentration, and so forth. Now the ideal of the West seems to be the

perfecting of the social state; and so we work at political and social

questions, since we think that the permanence of our civilisation depends upon

the well-being of the people. "

 

" But the basis of all systems, social or political, " said the

Swami with great earnestness, " rests upon the goodness of men. No nation is

great or good because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are

great and good. I have visited China which had the most admirable organisation

of all nations. Yet today China is like a disorganised mob, because her men are

not equal to the system contrived in the olden days. Religion goes to the root

of the matter. If it is right, all is right. "

 

" It sounds just a little vague and remote from practical life, that the Divine

is within everything but covered. One can't be looking for it all the time. "

 

" People often work for the same ends but fail to recognise the fact.

One must admit that law, government, politics are phases not final in any way.

 

There is a goal beyond them where law is not needed. And by the way, the very

word Sannyasin means the divine outlaw, one might say, divine nihilist, but that

miscomprehension pursues those that use such a word. All great Masters teach the

same thing. Christ saw that the basis is not law, that morality and purity are

the only strength. As for your statement that the East aims at higher

self-development and the West at the perfecting of the social state, you

do not of course forget that there is an apparent Self and a real Self. "

 

" The inference, of course, being that we work for the apparent, you for the

real? "

 

" The mind works through various stages to attain its fuller

development. First, it lays hold of the concrete, and only gradually deals with

abstractions. Look, too, how the idea of universal brotherhood is reached. First

it is grasped as brotherhood within a sect — hard, narrow, and exclusive. Step

by step we reach broad generalizations and the world of abstract ideas. "

 

" So you think that those sects, of which we English are so fond, will

die out. You know what the Frenchman said, 'England, the land of a thousand

sects and but one sauce'. "

 

" I am sure that they are bound to disappear. Their existence is founded on

non-essentials; the essential part of them will remain and be built up into

another edifice. You know the old saying that it is good to be born in a church,

but not to die in it. "

 

" Perhaps you will say how your work is progressing in England? "

 

" Slowly, for the reasons I have already named. When you deal with roots and

foundations, all real progress must be slow. Of course, I need not say that

these ideas are bound to spread by one means or another, and to many of us the

right moment for their dissemination seems now to have come. "

 

Then I listened to an explanation of how work is carried on. Like many an old

doctrine, this new one is offered without money and without price, depending

entirely upon the voluntary efforts of those who embrace it.

 

The Swami is a picturesque figure in his Eastern dress. His

simple and cordial manner, savouring of anything but the popular idea of

asceticism, an unusual command of English and great conversational powers add

not a little to an interesting personality. . . . His vow of Sannyasa implies

renunciation of position, property, and name, as well as the persistent search

for spiritual knowledge.