Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 118)

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Parts 1 to 117 were posted earlier. This is part 118. 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 118

 

PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE IN INDIA

 

Chapter 17: Sectarian Commentators on the Vedanta

a) Sects, the Division of Spiritual Labor

1. The Interpretation of the Vedas by Various Sects Should be Allowed

The Vedas are the common source of Hinduism in all its varied stages, as also of Buddhism and every other religious belief in India. The seeds of the multifarious growth of Indian thought on religion lie buried in the Vedas. Buddhism and the rest of India’s religious thought are the outcome of the unfolding and expansion of those seeds, and modern Hinduism also is only their developed and matured form. With the expansion or the contraction of society, those seeds lie more or less expanded at one place or more or less contracted at another.(1)

There are certain principles in which, I think, we - whether Vaishnavas, Shaktas or Ganapatyas, whether we belong 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 him or herself a Hindu believes in those principles. Of course, there is a difference in the interpretation, in the explanation of those principles, and that difference should be there, and it should be allowed, for our standard is not to bind everyone down to our position. It would be a sin to force everyone to work out our own interpretation of things, and to live by our methods.(2)

Cross reference to:

Rig Veda, 1.164, 46

2. All Religions and All Methods of Work and Worship Lead Us to One and the Same Goal

[The] peculiar idea of the Vedanta is that we must allow this infinite variation in religious thought and not try to bring everybody to the same opinion, because the goal is the same.(3)

Every sect of every religion presents only one ideal of its own to humankind, but the eternal Vedantic religion opens to humankind an infinite number of doors for ingress into the inner shrine of divinity and places before humanity an almost inexhaustible array of ideals, there being in each of them a manifestation of the eternal One. With the kindest solicitude the Vedanta points out to aspiring men and women the numerous roads, hewn out of the solid rock of the realities of human life by the glorious sons and daughters - or human manifestations of God - in the past and in the present, and stands with arms outstretched to welcome all - to welcome even those that are yet to be - to that Home of Truth and that Ocean of Bliss wherein the human soul, liberated from the net of maya, may transport itself with perfect freedom and with eternal joy.(4)

The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalized into four, viz. those of work, love, psychology, and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the other; but according to the type which prevails, we name the divisions. It is not that you can find people who have no other faculty than that of work, nor that you can find people who are no more than devoted worshippers only, nor that there are people who have no more than mere knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type, or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in people. We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal.(5)