Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 157)

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Parts 1 to 156 were posted earlier. This is part 157. 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 157

The Strength-Giving, Practical Upanishads Should Be Worshipped Rather Than the Puranas

I have always found "occultism" injurious and weakening to humanity. What we want is strength. We Indians, more than any other race, want strong and vigorous thought. We have enough of the superfine in all concerns. For centuries we have been stuffed with the mysterious; the result is that our intellectual an spiritual digestion is almost hopelessly impaired, and the race has been dragged down to the depths of hopeless imbecility - never before or since experienced by any other civilized community. There must be freshness and vigor of thought to make a virile race. More than enough to strengthen the whole world exists in the Upanishads. The Advaita is the eternal mine of strength. But it requires to be applied. It must first be cleared of the incrustation of scholasticism and then in all its simplicity, beauty and sublimity be taught over the length and breadth of the land, as applied to the minutest detail of daily life. "This is a very large order"; but we must work towards it, nevertheless, as if it would be accomplished tomorrow. Of one thing I am sure - that whoever wants to help his fellow beings through genuine love and unselfishness will work wonders.(6)

The more I read the Upanishads, my friends, my countrymen, the more I weep for you, for therein is the great practical application. - strength, strength for us What we need is strength. Who will give us strength? There are thousands to weaken us, and of stories we have had enough. Every one of our Puranas, if you press it, gives out stories enough to fill three-fourths of the libraries of the world. Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in view, viz. how to make us weaker and weaker till we have become real earthworms, crawling at the feet of everyone who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore, my friends, as one of your blood, as one who lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength. And the Upanishads are the great mine of strength.(7)

But nowadays we have put the Puranas on an even higher pedestal than the Vedas! The study of the Vedas has almost disappeared from Bengal. How I wish that day will soon come when in every home the Vedas will be worshipped together with the shalagrama, the household deity, when the young, the old, and the women will inaugurate the worship of the Veda!(8)