inomeiUous questions as those, and willing most learned [ihito.sophies on them! 'I'here is a dangei of our leligioii getting into the kitchen. We aie neither Vedanlists, most of us now, nor Pauiauics, nor Tuutrics. We aie just “ Dou’l-touchists.’ Our religion is the kitchen. (Jur (iod is the cookmg-pol, and our religion is “ Don't touch me, I am holy.'’ If this goes on for anothei century, eveiy one of us will be in a lunatic as) liiiii. Ills a sure sign of softening of the biain when the mind cannot giasp the higher piobleiiis of life, all 01 iginality is lost, the mind has lost all Us strength, its activity, and Us power of thought, and just tries to go loutid and round the smallest cuive U can find. This state of things has hist to be thrown ovei- boaid, and then we must stand up, be active and stiong, and then we shall recognise our heiitage to that iulimie treasure, the tieasuie oui foiefatheis have left for us, a treasure that the whole w'oild letpuies to-day. The woild will die if this treasuic is not disliibuled. Bung U out, disliibule it bioadcast. Says Vyasa, giMng is the one woik alone in this Kali Vui^a, and of all the gifts, giving spiiUual life is the highest gift possible; the next gift is scciilai knowledge; the next, saving the life of man, and the last, giving fooil to the needy. Of food we hate given enough; no nation is more charitable than we. So long as there is a piece of biead m the home of the beggar he will give half of it. Such a phenomenon can be ob.scrvcd only in India. We have enough of that, let us go for the othei two, the gifts of spiiitual and secular knowl- edge. And if we were all brave and had stout hcaits, and with absolute sincerity put our shoulders to the wdaeel, in tsventy-five years the whole problem would be solved, and there would be nothing left heie to fight about, but the w'hole Indian world would be once more Aryan. This is all I have to tell you now. I am not given much to talking about plans; I rather prefer to do and show, and then talk about my plans. I have my plans, and mean to woik them out if the Lord wills it, and if life is given to me. I do not know whether I shall succeed or not, but it is a great thing to lake up a grand ideal in life and then give up one’s whole life to it. For what otherwise is the value of life, this vegetating, little, low, life of man? Subordi- nating It to one high ideal is the only value that life has. This is the great work to be done in India. I welcome the prc.scnt icligious revival, and I should be foolish if I lo.st the opportunity of sinking the iron wdiile it is hot.
I REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT MADURA.
The Swann was presented with an address of welcome by the Hindus of Madura, which lead as follows: — Most Revkrf.d Swami.
We the Hindu Public of Madura beg to offer you our most heartfelt and res- pectful ^velcome to our ancient and holy city. We realise m you a living example of the Hindu Sannyasin, who icnouncing all worldly lies and attachments calculated to lead to the gratification of the self, is woithily engaged in the noble duty of living for otheis and endeavouring to laise the spiiitual coiulilion of niankiml. You have demonstiated in )oui own person that the tiue essence of the Hindu Religion, is not necessarily bound * up with rules and iiluals, but that it is a sublime philosophy capable of giving peace and solace to the distiessed and aflhcled.
You have taught Aineiica and J'uigland to admiic that philosophy and that religion which seeks to elevate every man in the best maniiei suited to liis capacities and enviionments. Although your teachings have foi the last lluce years been delivered in foreign lands, the) have not been the less eageily desouicd in this country and they have not a little tended to counieiact the growing mateiialisin imported from a foreign soil.
" India lives to this day, tor it has a mission to fulfil in the spiritual ordeiing of the univeise. I'he appeal ance of a soul like you at the close of this cycle of the Kali Yuga, is to us a suie sign of the incarnation in the near future of gieat souls thiough whom that mission will be fulfilled.
INIaduia, the seal of ancient learning, Madura the favoured city of the God Sundaresw'ava, the holy Dwadasantakshetiam of Yogis, lags behind no othei Indian city in Its warm adrnir.ition of your exposition rf Indian Idiilosophy and in its grate- ful acknowledgments of your priceless sei vices for humanity.
We pi ay that you may be blessed with a long life of vigour and strength and usefulness.
The Swami replied in the following lei ms: — I wish I could live in your midst for.several days, and fulfil the conditions that have just been pointed out by youi most worthy Chairman, of relating to you my experiences in the W'est, and the result of all my labours there for the last four years. But, unfortunately, even Swamis have bodies; and the continuous travelling and speaking that I have had to undergo for the last three weeks, make it impossible for me to deliver a very long speech this evening. I will therefore satisfy myself with thanking you very cordially for the kindness that has been shown to me, and reserve other things fof some day in the future, when under better conditions of health, we shall have time to talk over more various subjects than we can do in so short a time this evening. Being in Madura, as the guest of one of your well-known citizens and noblemen, the Rajah of Ramnad, one fact comes prominently to my mind. Perhaps most of you are aware that it was the Rajah who first put the idea into my mind of going to Chicago, and it was he who all the time supported it with all his heart and REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT MADURA.
59 influence. A good deal, therefore, of the praise that has been bestowed upon me in this address, ought to go to this noble man of Southern India. I only wish that instead of becoming a Rajah he had become a Sannyasin, for that is what he is really fit for.
Wherever there is a thing really needed in one part of the world, the comple- ment will find Its way there and supply it with new life. This is tiue in the physical world, as well as in the spiritual. If there is a want of spiiituality in one part of the woild, and at the same time that spirituality exists elsewhere, whether we conscious- ly struggle for it or not, that spirituality will find its way to the part where it is needed, and balance the inequality. In the history of the human lace. not once or twice, but again and again, it has been the destiny of India in the past to supply spirituality to the world; and, as such, wc find that wheiever eithci by mighty con- quest or by commercial supiemacy, different parts of the world have been kneaded into one whole race, and bequests have been made fiom one corner to the other, each nation, as it were, poured foith its own quota, either political, social, or spiritual. India’s contribution to the sum-total of human knowledge has been spirituality, philosophy. These she contiibuted even long befoie the rising of the Teisian Knipiie; the second time was dining the I'eisian Empire, for the third lime, duiing the ascendency of the (Iteeks; and now foi the fouiih time during the ascendency of the English, she is going to fulfil the same destiny once more. As Western ideas of oiganisation and external civilisation aie perietiating and pouiing into our country, whether we will have them or not, so, Indian spiiiluality and philos- ophy arc deluging the lands of the West None can lesist it, and no moie can we icsist some soil of mateiial civilisation fiom the West. A little of it, perhaps, is good for us, and a little spiriluahsaiion is good foi the West; thus the balance will be piescived. It is not that we ought to Icain evei) thing from the West, oi that they have to leain cveiything fiom us, but each will have to supply and hand down to future generations what it has, for the futuie accomplishment of that dieam of ages, the haimony of nations, an ideal woild. Whether that ideal woild will ever ' come I do not know, w'hclhci that social perfection w'ill ever be reached, I have my | own doubts about it; but, whether it comes or not, each one of us will have to work for the idea as if it will come 'to-moiiow', and as if it only depends on his w'oik, and his alone. Each one of us will have to believe that every one else in the w'oild has done his woik, and the only w’ork lemaining to be done to make the world pei feet has to be done by himself. This is the responsibility we have to take upon our- selves. In the meanwhile in India there'lTa'tr^lVicndous revival of religion. There is danger ahead, as well as gloiy, for, revival sometimes breeds fanaticism, sometimes goes to the extreme, so that often it is not even in the power of those who start the revival to control it when it has gone beyond a certain length. It is better, there- fore, to be forewarned. We have to find our way between the Scylla of old super- stitious orthodoxy, and the Charybdis of materialism, — of Europeamsm, of soulless- ness, of the so-called reform, — which has penetrated to the foundation of Western progress. These two have to be taken care of. In the fiist place we cannot become Westerns, therefore imitating the Westerns is useless. Suppose you can imitate the Westerns, that moment you will die, you will have no more life in you. In the second place, it is impossible. A stream is taking its rise, away beyond where time began, flowing through millions of ages of human histoiy; do you mean to get hold of that stream, and push it back to its source, to a Himalayan glacier "i Even if that were 40 LECTURES~FR0M COLO^tBO TO AtMORA practicable it would not be possible for you to be Europeanised. If you find it is impossible for the Euiopean to throw off the few centuries of culture which there is in the West, do you think it is possible for you to thiow oflF the culture of shining scoies of ceniuries? It cannot be. Wc must also remember that in every little village-^od, and every little supcr'^titious cU'^tom, is that which we are accustomed to call our leligioiis faith. Local customs arc iniimte and conti adictory; which are we to obey, and which not to obey? The Biahman in Southern India, for instance, would shrink in honor at the sight of anoLher Buihrnan eating meat; a Brdhman in the North thinks it a most glorious and holy thing to do — he kills goats by the hundred in sacrifice. If you put forward your custom they are equally ready with theirs. Various are the customs all over India, but they are local. The greatest mistake made is, that ignorant people always think that this local custom is the essence of our religion.
But beyond this there is a still greater difiiculty. There are two sorts of truths w^e find in our Shastras, one that is based upon the eternal nature of man — the one that deals with the eternal relation of God, soul, and nature; the other, with local circumstances, environments of the lime, social institutions of the period, and so forth. The first class of liulhs is chiefly embodied in our Vedas, our scriptures; the second in the Smritis, the Purdnas, etc. VVe must remember that for all periods the \’'edas are the final goal an<l authority, and if the Puidnas differ in any respect from the Vedas, that part of the Put Anas is to be rejected without mercy. We find then, that in all these Smiilis the teachings are different. One Smiili says, this is the custom, and this should be the practice of this age. Another one says, this is the practice of this age, and so forrh. This is the dchAra which should be the custom of the Satya Fuga, and this is the dchdra w'hich should be the custom of the Kali Fuga^ and so forth. Now this is one of the most glorious doctrines that you have, that eternal truths, being based upon the nature of man, will never change so long as man lives; they are for all times, omnipresent, universal virtues. But the Smiitis speak generally of local ciicumslances, of duties arising from different environments, and they change in the course of time. This you have ahvays to remember, that because a little social custom is going to be changed you are not going to lose your religion, not at all. Remember these customs have already been changed. There was a lime in this very India when, without eating beef, no Biahman could remain a Brahman; you read in the Vedas how, when a SannyAsin, a king, or a great man came into a house, the goat and the bullock w^ere killed; how' in time it was found that as we were an agricultural race, killing the best bulls meant annihilalion of the race. Therefore the practice was stopped, and a voice was raised against the killing of cows. Sometimes we find existing then, what w'e now consider the most horrible customs. In course of lime other laws had to be made. These in turn will have to go, and other Smritis will come. This is one fact we have to learn, that the Vedas being eternal will be one and the same throughout all ages, but the Smritis will have an end, As time rolls on, more and more of the Smritis will go, Sages will come, and they will change and direct society into better channels, into duties and into paths which are the necessity of the age, and without which it is impossible that society can live. Thus we have to guide our course, avoiding these two dangers, and I hope that every one of us here will have breadth enough, and at the same time faith enough, to understand what that means, and that what I suppose is, the inclusion of everything, and not the exclusion. I want the intensity of the fanatic plus the extensity of the kilPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT MADURA. 4^ hlAteiialist. Deep as the ocean, broad as the iullnile skies, that is the soit of heait wc want. Let us be as pioi^iessive as any n.ilion Ihat L-vcr cMsicd. and at tlic same time as faithful and conseivalive towaids our ti.uhlMjus as Hindus ahnie know ho\V lobe. In plain wouls, we have liist to leain llie disiinclina between the essentials and the non-essentials in everythin, 'I'lic essentials aie cleinal, the non-cssenlials have value only for a ceilain time, and if aliei a time they are not leplaoed by some- thing essential, they aie positively daiygcious. J do not mean that you should stand up and re\ile all 30111- old customs and institutions. Ceitainly not; you must not levile even the most evil one of them. Revile none. Kven those cu'itoms that aie now apjiear- ing to be positive evils, have been positively hfe-giving in tunes past, and if we ha\e to remove these, we must not do so with cuises, but with blessings and gratitude for tiio glorious work these customs ha\e done for the presoi v.ition of 0111 lacc. And we must also remember that the leadcis of our societies have never been cither gencials or kings, but Rishis. And who aie the Rishis? The Rishi as he is called in, the Upanishads, is not an oidmary man, but a lie is a man who sees leligion, to whom religion is not meiely book-learning, not argumentation, nor speculation, noi much talking, but actual realisation, a coming face to face w'ilh truths which tianscend the senses. This is Rishihood, and that Rishihood does not belong to any age, or time, 01 e\en to sects 01 caste \hils\.1) ana sa)s, liuih must be lealised — and we have to lemcmbor that 3^)11, and 1, and eveiy one f>f us will be called uj)ou to become Rishis, and w'c must have laith in ouisi'hcs, we must become woild-movois, for o\ei3 thing is in us. We must see Religion face to face, cxpciicnce It, and thus solve oui doubts about it; and then standing u[) in the gloiious light of Rishihood each one of us will be a giant, and eveiy word falling from our lijis w'lll can3 behind It that inlinite sanction of secuiit3', befoie us evil will \inish bv Itself, without the necessitv of cursing any one, wiihoiil the ni.n.soi\ <ii abu.siug any one, without tin' nc'cessity of lighting any one in the woild. May the f-ord help us, each one of us hcie, to icalise the Rishihood, loi out own salvation and for that of otheis.
F THE MISSION OF THE VEDANTA.
On the occasion of his visit to Kumbhakonam, the Swamiji was presented with the following acldiess by the local Hindu conimuiiity: — REVKREn SvVAMIN, — On behalf of the Hindu inhabitants of this ancient and religiously important town of Kumbhakonam, we request permission to offer you a most hearty welcome on your return fiom the Western World to onr own holy land of great temples and famous saints and sages. We aie highly thankful to God for the reinaikable suc- cess of your religious mission in Amoiica and in Euiope, and for Ills having enabled you to impiess upon the choicest reprcscntalivos of the woild's gieat religions assembled at Chicago, that both llu* Iliiulu Philo-iophy and Religion aie so broad and so laiionally catholic as to have in them life power to exalt and to liarmonise all ideals of God and of human spiiilualily.
The conviction that the cau-^o of I’lulh is always safe in the hands of Him who is the lito ami soul of the univeise, has been tor thousands of years pait O'f our living faith; and it to-day we lejoicc at liie lesulis of }our holy work in Ctirislian lands, it is because the eyes of men in and outside of India aie thereby being opened to the ine'^t^nable value of the Sf)iiifua! heiitage of the pre-eminently religious Hindu nation. The success of youi vvoik has natuially added gicat luslr-e to the aiieady lenowned name of )our great Gain; it has also laised us in the estimation of the civilised vvoild; moie than all, It has made us leel that we too, as a people, have reason to be pioud of the aclnevomeuts of our past, and that the ab.sence of telling aggiessivcness in our civilisation is in no way a sign of its exhausted oi decay- ing concliiion. With cleai -sighted, devoted, and altogether unselfish vvoikers like you m our mulst, the future of the Hindu nation cannot but be blight and hopeful. May the God of the umveise who is also the great God of all nations, bestow on you heallh and long life, and make you iucieasingly stiong and wise m the discharge of )Our high and noble function as a vvoithy teacher of Hindu Religion and Philos- ophy.
A Second address was also presented by the Hindu students of the town.
The Swanii then delivered the following addiess on the iNIission of the Ve- •danta: — A very small amount of religious work peiformed brings a large amount of result." If this slatemeut of the Gita wanted an illusUation, I am finding every day the truth of that gieat saying in my humble life. My work has been very insignificant indeed, but the kindness and the cordiality of welcome that have met me at every step of my jouiiiey from Colombo to this city, are simply be}OiKl all expectation. Yet, at the same tune, it is worthy of our traditions as Hindus, it is vvoithy of our race; tor heie we are the Hindu race, whose vitality, whose life-piinciple, whose very soul, ■as it were, is in religion. I have seen a little of the woild, travelling among the races of the East and the West; and everywhere I find among nations, one great ideal, which foinis the backbone, so to speak, of that race. With some it is polities, THE MISSION or THE VEDANTA 43 with others it is social culture; others again may'have intellectual culture and so on for their national background. But this, out motheiland, has leligion and leligion alone for its basis, for its backbone, for the bedrock upon which the whole building of its life has been based. Some of you may lemember that in my leply to the kind address which the people of Madias sent over to nve in Amciica, I pointed out the fact that a, peasant in India has, in many icspects, a better leligious education than many a gentleman in the West, and to-day, beyond all doubt, I myself am veiifying my own Nvords. There was a time when I did feel rather discontented at the w.int ot infor- mation among the masses of India, and the lack of thirst among them for informa-' lion, but now I uiidei stand it. Where their inteiesl lies, theie the)' are more eager for information than, the masses of any other race that I have seen or have tiavelled among. Ask our peasants al)out the momciiious poiuical changes in Europe, the upheavals that are going on in Euiopean society, and tliey do not know anything of them, nor do they care to know; hut the peasants, even m Cc'ylon, dcuched from* India in many wa\s, cut ofT from a living interest in India — I found the vciy peasants working in the fields there, were alieady acquainted-, with the fact that there had been- a Parliament of Religious in Ameiica, and lliai an Indian Sunnya^nn had gone over there and that he had had some success. Where, ihciefoie, their mlcMesi is, there they are as eagei for information as any other race; and religion is the one and the sole mteiest of the people of India. I am not just now discussing whether it is good to have the vitality of the lace in religious ideals or in political ideals, but so far it is clear to us, that for good or for evil, our vitality is concentrated in our religion. You cannot change it. You cannot destroy it and pul in its place another. You cannot tiansplant a laige gi owing tree from one soil to another and make it immediately take root there. For good or for evil, the religious ideal has been flow- ing into India for thousands of years; for good or for evil, the Indian atmosphere has been filled with ideals of religion for Shining scores of centuiics; for good or foi evil, we have been boin and brought up in the veiy midst of these ideals of religion, rill it has cntcied into our vciy blood, and tingled with every diop in our veins, and has become one with our constitution, become the very vitality of our lives. Can you give such religion up without the rousing of the same energy ia reaction, without filling the channel which that mighty livei has cut out for itself in the course of thousands of year5? Do you want that the Ganges should go back to Its icy bed and begin a new course? Even if that weie possible, it would be impossible for this country to give up her characteristic couise of religious life and take up for herself a new career of politics or something else. You can only work under the law of least resistance, and this religious line is the line of least resistance in India. This is the line of life, this is the line of growth, and this is the line ot well-being in India — to follow the track of religion. Aye, in other countries religion is only one of the many necessities in life. To use a common illustration which I am in the habit of using, my lady has many things in her pailour, and* it is the fashion nowadays to have a Japanese vase, and she must procure it; it does not look well to be without it. So my lady, or my gentleman, has many other occupa- tions in life, and also a little bit of religion must come in to complete it. Conse- quently he or she has a little religion. Politics, social improvement, in one word, this world. Is the goal of mankind in the West, and God and religion come in quietly as the helpers out of the world. Their God is, so to speak, the Being who helps to cleanse and to furnish tins world for them; that is apparently all the value of God LECTURES— FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA for them. Do you not know how for the last hundrcfl or two bundled }'ears you h;uc been he.iiiu^ again an<l again out of the lips of lucn who ought to have known liL'ltci, fK)in the iiiouilis of Ukjsc who piclend, at least, to know better, that all the aigurnents they pioduee against the liuliau leligion is tliis, — that our leligion does not cinuluce to well-being in this woild. lliat it does not bung gold to us, that it does not make us lobbeis of nations, that it tloes not make the stiong stand upon the bodies of the weak, and teed thenisebes with the bfc-blood of the weak, t.'er- lainly oui leligiou does not do that. It cannot send cohoits, under whose feet the eaith liembles, for the piiijiose of destinclion and pillage and the ruination of races. Therefoie they bay — wdiat is there in this leligion.? It does not bi ing any gi ist to the gi inding null, any stienglh to the muscles; what is theie in such a leligion? They little die am that that is the veiy aiguincnt W'llh wdiich we jirove oui religion, because It docs not make foi this woild. Oms is the only true religion, because accoiding to it, this little sense-woild of thiee days’ diiiation is not to be made the end and aim of all, is not to be oui great goal, d'his little earthly hoii/on of a few feet is not that which bounds the vmw of our leligion. (.)uis is away he)ond, and btill be}ond; be)Ond the senses, bcwoiid space, and beyond time, aw’ay, away beiond, till nothing of this woild is left and the universe itself becomes like a diop in the transcendent ocean of the gloiy of the Soul. Uuis is the tine leligion, because it teaches that God alone is tiue, that this woild is false and fleeting, that all 3 oui gold is but as dust, that all your powei is finite, and that hie itself is oftentimes an evil; theie- foie it is, that ouis is the tiuc lehgion. Oiiis is the liue lehgion, because, above all, it teaches lenunciatiou, and stands up with the wisdom of ages to tell and to declaie to the nations who aie meie children of yesterda) in compaiison with us Hindus, — who own the hoai) anticpiily of the wisdom, disco\eied by oui ancestois hcic in India to tell them in plain wouls, “ Childien, you aic slaves of the senses; theie is only finitencss in the senses, there is only luinatlon in the senses; the thioe shoit da3s of luxury here biing only luin at last. Give it all up, 1 enounce the love of the senses and of the W'orld; that is Ihe way of religion.” Thiough lenunciation is the way to the goal and not thiough enjoyment. Theiefore, oms is the only tiue religion. Aye, it is a cuiious fact that, while nations after nations have come upon the stage of the w'oild, played then paits vigoiOusly for a few moments, and died almost without leaving a maik 01 a ripple on the ocean of time, ''ere, we are living as it weie, an eternal life. They talk a gicat deal of the new iheoiie.s about the suivival of the fittest, and they think that it is the stiength of the muscles which Is the fittest to survive. If that weie true, any one of the aggressively known old~woild nations would have li\ed in glory to-day, and we, the weak Hindus, who never concpiered even one other lace or nation ought to have died out, yet we live here three hundred millions stiong! (An young English lady once told me, what have the Hindus done?
They never even contiuered a single lace ') And it is not at all tiue that all its energies aie spent,. that atiophy has ovei taken its body; that is not true. There is vitality enough, and out in toi rents, and deluges the world when the time