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I4Q Biiakii Thk Vedanta...Veda NT ISM '1’he Influence of Indmn Spiriti'vi Tmoughi in En(»t \nd Sannyas: Its Iiu:Af AND PkvCUCF What HAVE I LEARNT.''
The KjiUGioN we a Born in 'n FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE IN THE EAST (COLOMBO).
After his memorable propaganda in the West, Swami Vivekananda landed at Colombo on the afternoon of Januaiy 15th, 1897, and \\as gi\en a light icnal lecep- tion by the Hindu community there. The following address ot welcome was then presented 10 him: — To SRIMAT VIVEKANANDA SWAINII.
Revered.Sir, In pursuance of a resolution passed at a public meeting of the Hindus of the city of Coloml)0, we beg to offer you a hearty welcome to this Island. Wc deem it a piivilegc to be tlie first to welcome you on >oui iciutn home from your great mission m the West.
We haye watched with joy and thankfulness the success with which the mission' has, uiiderl God’s blessing, been crowned. You have proclaimed to the nations of Euiope and Amciica, the Hindu ideal of a univeisal religion, haimomsing all cieeds, pioliding spinlual food for each soul accoiding to us needs, and lovingly drawing it unto God. You have preached the Truth and the Way, tau'ght fioin remote ages by a 'Succession of Masteis whose blessed feet have walked and sanctified the soil of India, and whose giauous presence and inspiration have made her thiough all her vici&situdcs, the Light of the Woild, To the inspiiation of such a Mailer, Sii Ramakrishna Paiamahamsa Deva, and to your self-sacrificing /eal, wcstein nations owe the pnoelcss boon of being placed I in living contact w'ith the spiiitual genius of India, while to many of our owm coun- trymen, delivered from the glamour of western civilisation, the value of our gloiious heritage has been brought home.
By your noble work and example you have laid humanity under an obligalioni difficult to repay, and you have shed fresh lustre upon our Motherland. We pray that the grace of God may continue to prospei you and your woik, and We remain, Revered Sir, Youis faithfully, for and on behalf of the Hindus of Colombo, P. COOMARA SAWMY, Member of the Legislative Council of Cejion, Chairman of the Meeting, Colombo, January i8gj. Secrtfary.
The Swami gave a brief reply, expressing his appreciation of the kind welc^'me he had received. 'He took advantage of the opportunity to point out that the de- monstration had not been made in honour of a great politician, or a great soldier, » millionaire, but of a begging Saunyasi, showing the tendency of the Hindu mind 4 LECrURES-FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA towards religion. He urged the necessity of keeping religion as the backbone of the national life, if the nation were to live, and disclaimed any personal character for the welcome he had leceivcd, but insisted upon its being the recognition of a principle.
On the evening of the i6lh, the Swami gave the following public lecture in the Floral Hall: —, What little work has been done by me has not been from any inhere ^ power that resides in me, but fioin the cheerb, the good-will, the blessings, that havi, illovved my patii in the West from this our very beloved, most sacred, dear Mothw Some good has been done, no doubt, in the West, but specially to myself, for what before was the result of an emotional natme peiiiaps, has gained the certainty of conviction, and attained the power and sticnglh of dcmonstiation. Foimeily, I thought as every Hindu thinks, and ab the Hon. President has just pointed out to you, that this is the Punya Bhumi, the land of Kaima. To-day 1 stand here and say, with the conviction of truth, that it is so. If tfi^ere is any land on this eaith that can lay claim to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to w4iich all souls on this earth must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is. wending its way Godw'ard must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest towards genllene«s^, towa^s geneiosity, towards puiity, towaids calmness, above all the land of intibspectitQn and of spintuality, — it is India, Hence have staited the founders of rehgions^fiom the most ancient limes, deluging the eailh again and again with the puri^nd perennial waters of spiiitual tiuth, Hence have proceeded the tidal waves of philosophy that have coveied the earth, Eak or West, North or South, and hence again must suit the wave wdiicli is going to spiritualise the material civilisation of the w'orld. Hcie is the life-giving waiei wuili whicli must be quenched the burning fiie ot rnateiialism, which is burning the coic of the hearts of millions, in other lands. Belie/e me, my frieiuK, this i> going to be.
So much I haiJ^ seen, and so far those of you who are students of the history of races aic already awaie of this fact. 'Phe debt w'hicii the w'orld owes to our Mother- land is immense. Taking couutiy with countiy, there is not one race on tins earth to which the woilJ owes so much as to the patient Hindu, the mild Hindu. “ 'I'he mild Hindu" sometimes is used as an expression of reproach, but if ever a reproach concealed a wondeiful tiuth it is in the term, the “ mild Hindu," w'lio has always been the blessed child of God. Civilisations have aiisen in othei paits of the world. In ancient times and in modem limes, gicat ideas ha\e emanated from strong and great lace^. In ancient and in modem times, w'ondeiful ideas have been canied forwaid from one race to another. In ancient and i.> modern limes, seeds of great tiulh and power have been cast abroad by the advancing lidub of national life, but rnaik you, my fi lends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets, and with the niaich ot embattled cohoits. Each idea liad to be soaked in a deluge of blood; eaeh idea hadao wado tliiough the blood of millions of our fellow-bemgs; each word of power had to be follow'ed h) ihe gioaus of millions, by the wails of oiphans, by the tears ol widows. This, in the mam, other nations have taught; but India has for thousands of } ears peacefully existed. Heie activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist, when Rome wus not thought of, when the very lalheis of the modem Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves blue. Even eailier, wlicii history has no record, and tradition daies not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from then until now, ideas after idcvis have matched out from her, but FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE IX TIIK EAST 5 every word has been ‘ipoken wUh a blessing behind n, and peace before it We, of all nations of the world have never been a conqueiing lace, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live. Theie vvas a time when at the sound of the rnaich of big Greek battalions, the earth tiembled. Vanished tiom off the face of the earth; with not even a talc left behind to tell, gone is that ancient land of the Greeks. There was a time when the Roman K.igle floated over e\ei vihing woi ih having in this world; eveiywhere Rome’s power u.e, felt and piessed on the head of humanity; the earth tiembled at the name of Rome But the Capitoline Hill is a mass of ruins, the spider weaves Its web where the Ctesais luled '1 heie have been other nations equally gloiious that have come and gone, living a tv,w boms of exultant and of exuhetaiit dominance, and of a Wa ked national hie, and then vanishing like ripples on the face of the waters, rims have these nations nuiie their maik on the face of humanity. But we live, and if Mann laine back to d,u he would not be bewildered, and would not fiml himself m a foieigb land '1 In same laws aie here, laws adjusted and thought out ihiough thousands and thousands of vears; customs, the outcome of the acumen of ages ami die cwpeiiencc of tentiiiics that seem to be eternal; and as the days go by, as blow aflei blow of mistoiluuc has In-eii deliveied upon them, they seem to have seivcd one pm pose only, that ot making ihein stronger ’ and niuic constant. And to fliul the ceiilie of all this, the heait liom whiih the blood flows, the mrun-bpnug ol the n.Uion.d life, Indie' e me when I sa\ after my experience ot the woild, that it is licie. d'o theoihci nations ot the woild, leligion IS one among ihe many occupations of hie I'here is {<o1uk s, tlmie aie the enjoy- ments of social life, tlieic is.dl that wealth can buy oi povvei can bung, theie is all that the senses ( an cn|ov; and among all these vaiioiis occnpaiions ot life, and all this seaiching aftei sometlnng whah can give vet a liille rnoie vvheiiing to the cloyed senses -among all diese, iheo' is peihaps a lilile bit of lehgion But here, in India, religion is the one ami the only ociup.iiion of lite How niaiiv of \ou know that there has been a t'hino-jajiancsc w.ii ^ Veiv few of you. if any 'i hat ihcie aie tremen- dous political movements and so( i.ilisiic movements tiy mg to ti.insfoiin Wosr<-in society, how many of you know.? Vetv tew indeed, if any But that there vvas a Parlia- ineiil of Religions in America, and that there was a Hindu Saniuusin sent over there, I arn astonished to find that evt.m the cooly knows of it. That sliowss the way the wind blows, where die nalioinl life is I used to reavl books written by globe-tioltiiig travellers, especially foreigners, who deplored the ignoiance of the Eastern masses, but I found out that ii was paitly true ami at the same nine partly untrue If you ask a ploughman in i'higl.im), or in America, or Fr.ince, or in Germany to what parly he belongs, he can tell you whether he belongs to the Radicals or the Consei valives, and for whom he is going to vote. In \merica he will say whether he is Republican or Democrat, and even knows somcihmg about the silver question. But if you ask him about his religion, he will tell you that he goes to church, ami belongs to a certain denomination. TIuit i.s all lie know’s, and he thinks, it is snffnweiit Now, when we come to India, if \ou ask one of our ploughmen, ■' Do you know anything about politics He will reply, “ What is th.it?” He does not understand about socialistic rnovernenls, the relation between capital and laboui, and all that, he has never heaid of such things m his life, he woiks haid and earns hi.s biead. But you ask, “What i.s’your religion?” he replies, “ Look here, my friend, I have marked it on my foiehead.” Me can give you a good hint or two on questions of religioa. That has been my expen ence. That our nation's life. Individuals have each their € from Colombo to ajmora own peculiantics, and each man Ims his own method of growth, his own life marked out foi iuni, I)}' the mfiniie i)asl life, by all his past Karma as we Hindus say; Into thus world, with all the past on him, the infinite past ushers the present, and the way in which we use the piesenl is going to make the future. Thus, everyone born into this woild has a bent, a direct ion towards which he must go, through which he must live, and what is true of the individual is equally tiuc of the race. Each race, similarly, has a peculiar bent, each r.ice has a peculiar raison d'Ore, each race h. ^ a peculiar mission to fulfil in the life of the woild. Each race has to make its m result, to fuliil its own mission. Political greatness or military pow'cr is never the 'on of our race; it never was, and, mark my words, it never will be. But there nas been the other mission given to us, which is to conserve, to preserve, to accumulate, as it were, into a dynamo, all the spiiilual eneigy of the race, and that concenliated energy is to pour foilh in a deluge on the woild, whenevci cucumstanccs are propitious. Let the Persian or the Oreek, the Roman, the Arab, or the Englishman march his battalions, conquer the world, and link the different nations together, and the philosophy and spiiuuality of India is ever ready to flow along the new-made channels into the veins of the nations of the w'oild. The Ilindu’.s calm brain must pour out its own quota to give to the sum-total of human progiess. India’s gift to the world, is the light spintual.
Thus, in tlie past, we read in history, that whenever there arose a great conquer- ing nation uniting the dilTeicnt laces of the woild, binding India with the other races, taking hei out, as it weie, from her loneliness, and fiom her aloofness from the rest of the woild. into which she again and again cast herself, that wherever such func- tion has been brouglii about, the lesull has been the flooding of the world with Indian spiritual ideas. At the beginning of this centui)’, Schopenhauer, the great Geiman pliilo'.ophei, studying, from a not very clear tianslation of the Vedas made from an old translaiion intoPcisian, and thence by a young Frenchman into Latin, say‘<, ‘‘In the whole woild there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as ih.at of the Up.anishails It has been the.solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death” 'Plus gi eat Geiman sage foretold, that “The world is about to sec a levolution in thought more extensive and more powerful than that which was witnessed by the Renaissance of Greek I.iteratuie,” and to-day his pre- dictions arc coming to pass, riiose who keep their eyes open, those who under- stand the workings in the minds of the dilToieni nations of the West, those who are thinkers and study the dilTeicnl nations, will find the immense change that has been produced in the tone, the proccduie, in the methods, and in the literature of the w'pild by this slow, never-ceasing permeation of Indian thought. But there is another peculiaiity, as 1 have already hinted to you. We never preached our thoughts with Hie and swoid. If there is one word in the English language to repiesent the gift of India to the world, if there is one word in the English language to express ihe^flect which the literature of India produces upon mankind, it is this one word, “ fascination.” It is the opposite of anything that takes you suddenly; it throws on you, as it were, a charm imperceptibly. To many, Indian thought, Indian manners, Indian customs, Indian philosophy, Indian literature, are repulsive at the first sight, but let them persevere, let them read, let them become familiar with the great piiiiciplos underlying these ideas, and it is ninety-nine to one that the charm will come over them', and fascination will bo the result. Slowly and silently, as the gentle dew that falls in the morning, unseen, unheard, yet producing a most ircmcn- Fllisr PUBLIC LECTURE IN THE EAST f dous result, has been the work of this calm, patient, alUsuffering, spiritual race, upon the world of thought.
Once more history is going'lo repeat itself. For to-day, uiidci the blasting light of modern science, when old, ami appaienlly strong and invulnerable beliefs have been shattered to their very foundations, when special claims laid u[)on the allegiance of mankind by different sects have been all blown into atoms and have vanished into air — when the sledge-hammer blows of modem antiquarian reseaiches are pulverising like masses of porcelain all soils of antiquated oithodoxies —when leligion in the West is only in the hands of the ignorant, and liic knowing ones look down with scorn upon anything belonging to religion, here comes to the fore the philos- ophy of India, which displays the highest religious aspirations of the Indian mind, where llie grandest philosophical facts ha\e been the practical spirituality of the people. This natuially is coming to the rescue, the idea of the oneness of all, the Infinite, the idea of the Impersonal, the wonderful idea of the eternal soul of man, of the unbroken continuity in the inarch of beings, and the infinity of the universe. The old sects looked upon the wot Id as a little mud-puddle, and ihouglil that time began but the other day. It was iheic in our old books, and only theic that the gland idea of the infinite range of lime, space and causation, and above all, the infinite glory of the spirit of man governed all the seaich for religion. When the modern tremendous theoiies of evolution and con.seivalion of cncigy and so foith, me deal- ing death blows to all sorts of crude theologies, what then can hold any more the allegiance of cultured Immanity but the most wonderful of convincing, bioadening, and ennobling ideas, that can only be found in that most maivcllous product of the Boul of man, the wondeiful voice of God, the Vedanta.
I At the same lime, I mn'<t remark, that what I mean by our religion working upon the nations outside of India, comprises only the piinciplcs, the background, the foundation upon which that religion is built. The detailed woi kings, the minute points which have been worked out thiough centuiies of social necessity, little ratio- cinations about manners and customs and social well-being, do not lightly find a place in the category of religion. We know, that in our books, a cieai distinction is made between two sets of truths. The one set is that which abides for ever, being built upon the nature of man, the nature of the soul, the soul’s relation to God, the nature of God, peifeclion, and soon; ihcic are also the principles of cosmology, of the infinitude of ci cation, or mote correctly spcaking—projeclion, the wondeiful law of cyclical procession, and so on; — these aie the eternal principles founded upon the universal laws^n nature. The other set compnses the minor laws, which guides the working of our everyday life. I'hey belong moie pioperly to the Puranas, to the Smritis, and not to the Srutis. These have nothing to do with the other principles. Even in our own nation these minor laws have l)een changing all the time. Customs of one age, of one Yuga, have not been the customs of another, and as Yuga comes after Yuga, they will still have to change. Grc^t Risliis will appear and lead us to customs and manners that are suited to new environ- ments.
The great principles underlying all this wonderful, infinite, ennobling, expansive view of man and God, and the world, have been produced in India. In India alone, man has not stood up to fight foi a little tribe God, saying “My God is true and yours is not true; let us have a good fight over it.” It was only here that such ideas did not occur, as fighting for little gods. These great underlying principles being based LECTURES~~FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA % upon the eteinal nature of man, are as potent to-day foi working for the good of the human race, as they were thousands of years ago, and they will remam so, so long as this earth remains, so long as the law of Kai'ma remains, so long as w-e are born as individuals and have to work out our own destiny by our individual power.
And above all, what India has to give to the world, is this. If w-e w'atch the growth and development of religions in different races, we shall always find this, that each tribe at the beginning has a god of its own, If the tribet^trre allied to each other, these gods will have a generic name, as for e.xample, all tl Babylonian gods had. When the Babylonians were divided into many races it' v had the generic name of Baal, just as the Jewish races had different gods with ^ common name of Moloch: and at the same time you will find, that one of these tribes be- comes superior to the rest, and lays claim to its own king as the king over all. There- from, it natuially follows that it also wants to preserve its own god as the god of all the races. Baal-Merodach, said the Babylonians, was the gieatest god; all the others were infeiior. Moloch- Yavah was the superior over all other Molochs; and these questions had to be decided by the fortunes of battle. The same struggle was here also. In India the same competing gods had been struggling with each other for supremacy, but the great good fortune of this country and of the world was, that there came out m tiie midst of the dm and confusion, a voice which declared, Ekam sat vxprd bahudhd vadanti ( That which exists is One; sages call It by various names ). It IS not that Siva is supeiior to Vishnu, not that Vishnu is everything and Siva is nothing, but it is the same one whom you call either Siva or Vishnu, or by a hundred other names. The names are different, but it is the same one. The whole history of India you may read m these few words. The whole history has been a repe- tition in massive language, with tremendous power, of that one central doctrine. It was repeated in the land, till it had entered into the blood of the nation, till it began to tingle with every drop of blood that flowed in their veins, till it became one with the life, part and parcel of the material of which they were composed, and thus, the land was transmuted into the most wonderful land of toleration, giving the right to welcome the various religions as well as all sects, into the old mother- country.
And herein is the explanation of the most remarkable phenomenon that is only witnessed here, of all the various sects, apparently hopelessly contradictory, yet living in such harmony. You may be a dualist, and I may be a monist. You may believe that you are the eternal seivant of God, and another may declare that he is one with God Himself; yet both of them are good Hindus. How is that possible? Read then — Ekam sat viprd bahudhd vadanli ( That."hich exists is One; sages call It by vaiious names). Above all others, my countrymen, this is the one grand truth that we have to teach to the world. Even the most educated people of other countries turn up their noses at an angle of forty-five degrees and call our religion, idolatry, 1 have seen that, and they never stopped to think what a mass of superstition there was m their own heads. It is so still everywhere, this tremendous sectarianism, the low narrowness of the mind. The thing which a man has, is the only thing worth having; the only life worth living is his own little life of dollar-worship and mam- mon-worship; the only little possession worth having is his own property, and nothing else. If he can manufacture a little clay nonsense or invent a machine, that 16 to he admired beyond the greatest possessions. That is the case over the whole world, in spite of education and learning. But education has yet to be in the world, PUBLIC LECTURE AV TILE EAST 9 and civilisation — civilisation has begun nowhere yet, ninety-nine decimal nine per Cent of the human race aic more or less savages, even now. We may load of these things in books, and we hear of toleration in religion and all that, hut veiy little is there yet in the world; take niy cvperiencc for that; ninety-nine per cent do not even think of it. There is tremendous religious perseoution yet, in eveiy country in winch I have been, and the same old objections are laised against leain- ing anylliiilg new. 'I'lie little toleiation that is in the woild, the little.sympathy that IS yet in the world, foi religous thought, IS piactically heie, in the land of the Alias, and nowheie else. It H here ih.il Indians build temples for Mohammedans and Cdiiisliana; nowhere else. If >ou go to other countiies and ask Mohammed, ms, oi people of othei religions to build a temple foi you, see how they will lielj). I’hcy will instead ti) to break down your temple and you loo, if they can. 'I'he one gicat lesson tlierefore that the woild wants most, that the woild has yet to Ic.iin from India, is the idea, not only of toleiation, but of simpalliy. Well has it been said in tlie Mahhtntu.SVfV/sr As the dilTeieiit riveis, taking then stall liom dillercnl moiiii-