Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 124)

[Guest guest]

Parts 1 to 123 were posted earlier. This is part 124. 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 124

All of religion is contained in the Vedanta, that is, in the three stages of the Vedanta philosophy, the Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita and Advaita; one comes after the other. These are the three stages of spiritual growth in man. Each one is necessary. This is the essential of religion. The Vedanta, applied to the various ethnic customs and creeds of India, is Hinduism. The first stage, i.e. Dvaita, applied to the ideas of the ethnic groups of Europe, is Christianity; as applied to the Semitic groups, Islam. The Advaita, as applied in its yoga-perception form, is Buddhism, etc. Now, by religion is meant the Vedanta; the applications must vary according to the different needs, their surrounding, and other circumstances of different nations. You will find that, although the philosophy is the same, the Shaktas, Shaivas, etc. apply it each to their own special cult and forms.(28)

c) The Mistake of the Thinking the Upanishads Teach Only One Thing

1. Every Indian Philosopher Must Find His or Her Authority in the Upanishads

Whatever be the philosophy or sect, everyone in India has to find his or her authority in the Upanishads. If he or she cannot, his or her sect would be heterodox.(29)

In India… in spite of all these jarring sects which we see today and all those that have been in the past, the one authority, the basis of all these systems, has yet been the Upanishads, the Vedanta. Whether you are a dualist, or a qualified monist, Advaitist, Vishishtadvaitist, Shuddhadvaitist, or any other Advaitist, or a dualist, or whatever you may call yourself, there stand behind you as authority your Shastras, your scriptures, the Upanishads. Whatever system in India does not obey the Upanishads cannot be called orthodox; and even the systems of the Jains and the Buddhists have been rejected from the soil of India only because they did not bear allegiance to the Upanishads. Thus the Vedanta, whether we know it or not, has penetrated all the sects in India, and what we call Hinduism, this mighty banyan with its immense, almost infinite ramifications, has been throughout interpenetrated by the influence of the Vedanta. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we think the Vedanta, we live in the Vedanta, we breathe in the Vedanta, and we die in the Vedanta; and every Hindu does that.(30)

The Vedanta, then, practically forms the scriptures of the Hindus, and all systems of philosophy that are orthodox have to take it as their foundation. Even the Buddhists and Jains, when it suits their purpose, will quote a passage from the Vedanta as authority.(31)