Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 119)

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Parts 1 to 118 were posted earlier. This is part 119. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 119

 

 

3. The Religion and the Vedas Has the Vigor to Absorb Sect after Sect

Three religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric - Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all of them proved themselves by their survival their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand religion, sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations; but, like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous; and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith.

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 Hindus’ religion.(6)

[Many] books constitute the scriptures of the Hindus. When there is such a mass of sacred books in a nation and a race which has devoted the greatest part of its energies to the thought of philosophy and spirituality (nobody knows for how many thousands of years), it is quite natural that there should be so many sects; indeed it is a wonder that there are not thousands more.(7)

4. It Is the Necessity of the Age That All Sects Should Be Allowed to Live

To preach Vedanta in the land of India and before an Indian audience seems… to be an anomaly. But it is the one thing that has to be preached, and it is the necessity of the age that it must be preached. For… all the Indian sects must bear allegiance to the Upanishads; but among those sects there are many apparent contradictions. Many times the great sages of yore themselves could not understand the underlying harmony of the Upanishads. Many times even sages quarrelled; so much so that it became a proverb that there are no sages who do not differ.(8)

There are some religions [including the Vedic] which have come down to us from the remotest antiquity, which are imbued with the idea that all sects should be allowed to live, that every sect has a meaning, a great idea, embedded within itself and, therefore, it is necessary for the good of the world and ought to be helped. In modern times the same idea is prevailing and attempts are made from time to time to reduce it to practice. These attempts do not always come up to our expectations, to the required efficiency. Nay, to our great disappointment, we sometimes find that we are quarrelling all the more.(9)