Swami Vivekananda on Shankara

April 22, 2004

GREAT MINDS ON THE GREAT MASTER

Swami Vivekananda

I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever worte or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism.

But India has to live, and the spirit of the Lord descended again. He who declared "I will come whenever virtue subsides", came again, and this time the manifestation was in the South, and up rose the young Brahmin of whom it has been declared that at the age of sixteen he had completed all his writings; the marvellous boy Sankaracharya. The writings of this boy of sixteen are the wonders of the modern world, and so was the boy. He wanted to bring back the Indian world to its pristine purity, but think of the amount of the task before him... The Tartars and the Baluchis and all the hideous races of mankind came to India and became Buddhists, and assimilated with us, and brought their national customs and the whole of our national life became a huge stage of the most horrible and the most bestial customs. That was the inheritance which that boy got from the Buddhists, and from that time to this day his whole work in India is a re-conquest of this Buddhistic degradation by the Vedanta. It is still going on, it is not yet finished. Sankara came as a great philosopher and showed that the real essence of Buddhism and that of the Vedanta are not very different, but that the disciples did not understand the Master and have degraded themselves, denied the existence of the soul and of God and have become atheists. That was what Shankara showed and all the Buddhists began to come back to the old religion.

The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Shankaracharya. By solid reasoning he extracted from the Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of Jnana that is taught in his commentaries. He unified all the conflicting descriptions of Brahman and showed that there is only one infinite Reality. He showed too that as man can only travel slowly on the upward road, all the varied presentations are needed to suit his varying capacity. We find something akin to this in the teachings of Jesus, which he evidently adapted to the different abilities of his hearers. First he taught them of a Father in heaven and to pray to him. Next he rose a step higher and told them, "I am the vine, you are the branches", and lastly he gave them the highest truth: "I and my Father are one," and "The kingdom of Heaven is within You" Shankara taught that three things were the great gifts of God: (1) human body (2) thirst after God and (3) a teacher who can show up the light. When these three great gifts are ours, we may know that our redemption is at hand. Only knowledge can free and save us but with knowledge must go virtue.

Books cannot teach God, but they can destroy ignorance; their action is negative. To hold to the books and at the same time open the way to freedom is Shankara's great achievement.

Shankaracharya had caught the rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence. Indeed I always imagine that he had some vision such as mine when he was young and recovered the ancient music that way. Anyway, his whole life's work is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and the Upanishads.