Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 169)

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 169

There are two great obstacles on our path in India - the Scylla of the old

orthodoxy, and the Charybdis of modern European civilization. Of those two, I

vote for the old orthodoxy and not for the Europeanized system; for the old

orthodox people may be ignorant, they may be crude, but they are real human

beings, they have faith, they have strength, they stand on their own feet; while

Europeanized people have no backbone, they are a mass of heterogeneous ideas

picked up at random from every source - and these ideas are unassimilated,

undigested, unharmonized. They do not stand on their own feet, and their heads

are turning round and round. Where is the motive power of their work? In a few,

patronizing pats from the English people. Their schemes of reforms, their

vehement vituperations against the evils of certain social customs have, as the

mainspring, some European patronage. Why are some of our customs called evil?

Because the Europeans say so. That is about the reason they give. I would not

submit to that. Stand and die in your own strength; if there is any sin the

world, it is weakness. Avoid all weakness, for weakness is sin, weakness is

death. These unbalanced creatures are not yet formed into distinct

personalities. What are we to call them - men, women, or animals? On the other

hand, these old, orthodox people were staunch, and were real human beings.(50)

 

A pandit asked Swami Vivekananda if there was any harm in giving up

sandhyavandanam or prayers performed in the morning, noon and evening, which he

had had to do for lack of time. " What! " cried out the swami, almost with

ferocity, " Those giants of old, the ancient rishis, who never walked, but strode

- the like of whom, if you are to think [of] for a moment, you would be

shriveled into a moth - they, sir, had time and you have none! " … When a

Westernized Hindu spoke in a belittling manner of the " meaningless teachings " of

the Vedic seers, the swami fell upon him with thunderbolt vehemence, crying out,

" Man, a little learning has muddled your brain! How dare you criticize your

venerable forebears, how dare you bastardize the blood of the rishis in your

veins by speaking in such a fashion! Have you tested the science of the rishis?

Have you even so much as read the Vedas? There is the challenge thrown by the

rishis! If you dare oppose them, take it up, put their teachings to the test,

and they shall not be found wanting! What is making this race contemptible is

just such intellectual bigotry and lop-sidedness as you manifest! " (51)