Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 161)

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Parts 1 to 160 were posted earlier. This is part 161. 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 161

 

c) Blind Allegiance to Non-Vedic Usages Has Been One of the Main Causes of the Downfall of India

1. The Real Worship in India Is to the God of Popular Custom

The Vedanta was (and is) the boldest system of religion. It stopped nowhere, and it had one advantage: there was no body of priests who sought to suppress every one who tried to tell the truth. There was always absolute religious freedom. In India the bondage of superstitions is a social one;… in the West society is very free. Social matters in India are very strict, but religious opinion is free.(19)

We all find the most contradictory usages prevailing in our [indian] midst and also religious opinions prevailing in[indian] society which scarcely have any authority in the scriptures of the Hindus; and in many cases we read in books and see with astonishment, customs of the country that have neither their authority in the Vedas nor in the Smritis nor Puranas, but are simply local. And yet each ignorant villager thinks that if that little local custom dies out, he or she will no more remain a Hindu. In his or her mind Vedantism and these little local customs have been indissolubly identified. In reading the scriptures it is hard for him or her to understand that what he or she is doing has not the sanction of the scriptures, and that the giving up of them will not hurt him or her at all; but, on the contrary, will make him or her a better person. (20)

Unfortunately for India at the present time… a petty village custom seems now the real authority, and not the teaching of the Upanishads. A petty idea current in a wayside village in Bengal seems to have the authority of the Vedas, and even something better. And that word orthodox - how wonderful its influence! To the villager, the following of every little bit of the Karma-Kanda is the very height of "orthodoxy" and one who does not do it is told, "Get away, you are no more a Hindu."(21)