Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 168)

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Parts 1 to 167 were posted earlier. This is part 168. 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 168

 

4. Out of a Strong Desire for Progress, the Brahmins Have Taken Up Western Usages and Belittle the Aryan Sages

There is no escaping out of [the endless net of priestly power] now. Tear the net and the priesthood of the priest is shaken to its foundation! There is implanted in everyone, naturally, a strong desire for progress; and those who, finding that the fulfillment of this desire is an impossibility so long as one is trammeled in the shackles of priesthood, rend this net and take to the profession of other castes in order to earn money thereby - them, society immediately dispossesses of their priestly rights. Society has no faith in the brahmin-hood of the so-called brahmins who, instead of keeping the shikha [sacred tuft of hair], part their hair; who, giving up their ancient habits and ancestral customs, clothe themselves in semi-European dress and adopt the newly introduced usages from the West in a hybrid fashion. Again, in those parts of India, wherever this newcomer, the English government, is introducing new modes of education and opening up new channels for the coming in of wealth, there hosts of brahmin youths are giving up their hereditary priestly profession and trying to earn their livelihood and become rich by adopting the calling of other castes, with the result that the habits and customs of the priestly class, handed down from our distant forebears, are scattered to the winds and are fast disappearing from the land.(48)

There are people today who, after drinking the cup of Western wisdom, thinks that they know everything. They laugh at the ancient sages. All Hindu thought is to them arrant trash - philosophy mere child’s prattle, and religion the superstition of fools. On the other hand there are people - educated, but a sort of monomaniacs, who run to the other extreme and want to explain the omen of this and that. They have philosophical and metaphysical, and Lord knows what other puerile explanations for every superstition that belongs to their particular race, or their peculiar gods, or their peculiar village. Every little village superstition is to them a mandate of the Vedas; and upon the carrying out of it, according to them, depends the national life. You must beware of this. I would rather see every one of you rank atheists than superstitious fools, for atheists are alive and you can make something out of them. But if superstition enters, the brain is gone, the brain is softening, degradation has seized upon life. Avoid these two.(49)