Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 152/2)

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Parts 1 to 151 were posted earlier. This is part 152/2. 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 152/2

O, India, this is your terrible danger: the spell of the West and imitating the West is getting such a strong hold upon you that what is good and what is bad is no longer decided by reason, judgement, discrimination, or reference to the Shastras. Whatever ideas, whatever manners the white people praise or like are good; whatever things they dislike or censure are bad. Alas! What can be a more tangible proof of foolishness than this?

The Western ladies move freely everywhere, therefore that is good, they choose their husbands for themselves; therefore that is the highest step of advancement; the Westerners disapprove of our dress, decorations, food, and ways of living; therefore they must be very bad; the Westerners condemn image worship as sinful; surely, then, image worship is the greatest sin, there is no doubt of it!

The Westerners say that worshipping a single deity is fruitful of the highest good, therefore let us throw our gods and goddesses into the River Ganges! The Westerners hold caste distinctions to be obnoxious, therefore let all the different castes be jumbled into one! The Westerners say that child-marriage is the root of all evils, therefore that is also very bad, of a certainty it is!

We are not discussing here whether these customs deserve continuance or rejection; but if the mere disapproval of the Westerners be the measure of the abominableness of our manners and customs, then it is our duty to raise our emphatic protest against it.(27)

Out of the feeling of unrest produced [by the conflict of Western influence and the Vedantic tradition] there arose a wave of so-called reform in India.(28)

The orthodox have more faith and more strength in themselves [than the reformers], in spite of their crudeness; but the reformers simply play into the hands of the Europeans and pander to their vanity. (29)

The West wants every bit of spirituality through social improvement. The East wants every bit of social power through spirituality. Thus it was that the modern reformers saw no way to reform but by first crushing out the religion of India. They tried, and they failed. Why? Because few of them ever studied their own religion, and not one ever underwent the training necessary to understand the Mother of all religions.(30)