Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Shiva Kali Krishna Forever

Behold the Himalayas! There to the north is Kailas, the main abode of the Old Shiva. That throne the ten-headed, twenty-armed, mighty Ravana could not shake -- now for the missionaries to attempt the task?-- bless my soul! 

Here in India will ever be the Old Shiva taboring on his Damaru, the Mother Kali worshipped with animal sacrifice, and the lovable Shri Krishna playing on His flute. 
Firm as the Himalayas they are; and no attempts of anyone, Christian or other missionaries, will ever be able to remove them. 
If you cannot bear them -- avaunt! 

                                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                                   The East and The West 


Brutal Degradation


Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Jealousy - Bane of Indians

Why should the Hindu nation with all its wonderful intelligence and other things have gone to pieces? 
I would answer you, jealousy.  

Never were there people more wretchedly jealous of one another, more envious of one another's fame and name than this wretched Hindu race. And if you ever come out in the West, the absence of this is the first feeling which you will see in the Western nations.

Three men cannot act in concert together in India for five minutes. Each one struggles for power, and in the long run the whole organisation comes to grief. 
Lord! Lord! When will we learn not to be jealous! 

                      - Swami Vivekananda, 
                        in a Letter to Haridas V Desai 
                       from Chicago (January 1894)


Real Love only in God


Monday, July 29, 2019

Merit and Sin

A country where millions of people live on flowers of the Mohua plant, and a million or two of Sadhus and a hundred million or so of Brahmins suck the blood out of these poor people, without even the least effort for their amelioration -- is that a country or hell? 
Is that a religion, or the devil's dance? 

My brother, here is one thing for you to understand fully -- I have travelled all over India, and seen this country too -- can there be an effect without cause? 
Can there be punishment without sin?
सर्वशास्त्रपुराणेषु व्यासस्य वचनं ध्रुव्रम् |
परोपकार: पुण्याय पापाय परपीडनम् ||
-"Amidst all the scriptures and Puranas, know this statement of Vyasa to be true, that doing good to others conduces to merit, and doing harm to them leads to sin." 

                         - Swami Vivekananda, 
                           in a Letter to Swami Ramakrishnananda 
                           from Chicago (March 1894)


Object of Life


Sunday, July 28, 2019

O India! Forget Not

O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; 
forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Uma; 
forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not for thy individual personal happiness; 
forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; 
forget not that thy social order is but the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; 
forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. 

Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." 
Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother." 

                   - Swami Vivekananda, 
                     ‘Modern India’ – an article written in Bengali 
                      for Udbodhan 


World Full of Babies!


Friday, July 26, 2019

Great Yajna of Kafir-slaughter!

The Prophet Mohammed himself was dead against the priestly class in any shape and tried his best for the total destruction of this power by formulating rules and injunctions to that effect. 
Under the Mussalman rule, the king himself was the supreme priest; he was the chief guide in religious matters; and when he became the emperor, he cherished the hope of being the paramount leader in all matters over the whole Mussulman world. 

To the Mussulman, the Jews or the Christians are not objects of extreme detestation; they are, at the worst, men of little faith. 
But not so the Hindu. 
According to him, the Hindu is idolatrous, the hateful Kafir; hence in this life he deserves to be butchered; and in the next, eternal hell is in store for him. The utmost the Mussulman kings could do as a favour to the priestly class -- the spiritual guides of these Kafirs -- was to allow them somehow to pass their life silently and wait for the last moment. 
This was again sometimes considered too much kindness! 
If the religious ardour of any king was a little more uncommon, there would immediately follow arrangements for a great Yajna by way of Kafir-slaughter! 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                      ‘Modern India’ – an article written 
                       in Bengali for Udbodhan 


Attachment Degenerates us


Thursday, July 25, 2019

Moribund Society

Our motherland is a glowing example of the results and consequence of the eternal subjection of the individual to society and forced self-sacrifice by dint of institution and discipline. 
In this country men are born according to Shastric injunctions, they eat and drink by prescribed rules throughout life, they go through marriage and kindred functions in the same way; in short, they even die according to Shastric injunctions. 

The hard discipline, with the exception of one great good point, is fraught with evil. The good point is that men can do one or two things well with very little effort, having practised them every day through generations. The delicious rice and curry which a cook of this country prepares with the aid of three lumps of earth and a few sticks can be had nowhere else. With the simple mechanism of an antediluvian loom, worth one rupee, and the feet put in a pit, it is possible to make kincobs worth twenty rupees a yard, in this country alone. A torn mat, an earthen lamp, and that fed by castor oil -- with the aid of materials such as these, wonderful savants are produced in this country alone. 
An all-forbearing attachment to an ugly and deformed wife, and a lifelong devotion to a worthless and villainous husband are possible in this country alone. Thus far the bright side.

But all these things are done by people guided like lifeless machines. There is no mental activity, no unfoldment of the heart, no vibration of life, no flux of hope; there is no strong stimulation of the will, no experience of keen pleasure, nor the contact with intense sorrow; there is no stir of inventive genius, no desire for novelty, no appreciation of new things. 
Clouds never pass away from this mind, the radiant picture of the morning sun never charms this heart. It never even occurs to this mind if there is any better state than this; where it does, it cannot convince; in the event of conviction, effort is lacking; and even where there is effort, lack of enthusiasm kills it out. 

                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                 Written to Mrinalini Bose 
                  from Deoghar in Bengali  (23rd December 1898)

"I and my Father are one"


Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Repeating Undigested European Brainwork

I want that numbers of our young men should pay a visit to Japan and China every year. Especially to the Japanese, India is still the dreamland of everything high and good. 
And you, what are you? 
 ... talking twaddle all your lives, vain talkers, what are you? 

Come, see these people, and then go and hide your faces in shame. A race of dotards, you lose your caste if you come out!
Sitting down these hundreds of years with an ever-increasing load of crystallised superstition on your heads, for hundreds of years spending all your energy upon discussing the touchableness or untouchableness of this food or that, with all humanity crushed out of you by the continuous social tyranny of ages -- what are you? 

And what are you doing now? 
... promenading the seashores with books in your hands -- repeating undigested stray bits of European brainwork, and the whole soul bent upon getting a thirty-rupee clerkship, or at best becoming a lawyer -- the height of young India's ambition -- and every student with a whole brood of hungry children cackling at his heels and asking for bread! 

Is there not water enough in the sea to drown you, books, gowns, university diplomas, and all? 

             - Swami Vivekananda, 
                in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal 
                from Yokohama, Japan  (10th July 1893)


Hand Was Made To Give


Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Do Not Imitate

When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come. 
Here am I, one of the least of the Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of my ancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I am one of your unworthy servants. 

I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the descendants of the sages, you the descendants of the most glorious Rishis the world ever saw. 
Therefore have faith in yourselves, be proud of your ancestors, instead of being ashamed of them. 

And do not imitate, do not imitate!

                          - Swami Vivekananda, 
                            Address at Lahore, 
                            Lectures From Colombo to Almora


Diabolic to Cut Animals


Monday, July 22, 2019

Correction of India's Image Abroad

… Professor Max Muller presented Shri Ramakrishna's life to the learned European public, in an article entitled "A Real Mahatman", which appeared in The Nineteenth Century  in its August number, 1896.
The learned people of Europe and America read the article with great interest and many have been attracted towards its subject, Shri Ramakrishna Deva, with the result that the wrong ideas of the civilised West about India as a country full of naked, infanticidal, ignorant, cowardly race of men who were cannibals and little removed from beasts, who forcibly burnt their widows and were steeped in all sorts of sins and darkness -- towards the formation of which ideas, the Christian missionaries and, I am as much ashamed as pained to confess, some of my own countrymen also have been chiefly instrumental -- began to be corrected. 

The veil of the gloom of ignorance, which was spread across the eyes of the Western people by the strenuous efforts of these two bodies of men, has been slowly and slowly rending asunder. 
"Can the country that has produced a great world-teacher like Shri Bhagavan Ramakrishna Deva be really full of such abominations as we have been asked to believe in, or have we been all along duped by interested organised bodies of mischief-makers, and kept in utter obscurity and error about the real India?"-- such a question naturally arises in the Western mind.

When Professor Max Muller, who occupies in the West the first rank in the field of Indian religion, philosophy, and literature, published with a devoted heart a short sketch of Shri Ramakrishna's life in The Nineteenth Century  for the benefit of Europeans and Americans, it is needless to say that a bitter feeling of burning rancour made its appearance amongst those two classes of people referred to above. 

                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                  Translation of a review of 
                  ‘Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings’  by 
                   Prof. Max Muller, 
                   contributed to the Udbodhana, 14th March, 1899


The Ideal We Must Remember


Saturday, July 20, 2019

Tamil Civilisation

The Madras Presidency is the habitat of that Tamil race whose civilisation was the most ancient, and a branch of whom, called the Sumerians, spread a vast civilisation on the banks of the Euphrates in very ancient times; 
whose astrology, religious lore, morals, rites, etc., furnished the foundation for the Assyrian and Babylonian civilisations; 
and whose mythology was the source of the Christian Bible.

Another branch of these Tamils spread from the Malabar coast and gave rise to the wonderful Egyptian civilisation, and the Aryans also are indebted to this race in many respects. 

                      - Swami Vivekananda, 
                        Memoirs of European Travel 


Sannyasin is to Love Death


Friday, July 19, 2019

Caste - Social Problem not Religious

The Hindu must not give up his religion, but must keep religion within its proper limits and give freedom to society to grow. 
All the reformers in India made the serious mistake of holding religion accountable for all the horrors of priestcraft and degeneration and went forthwith to pull down the indestructible structure, and what was the result? Failure! 

Beginning from Buddha down to Ram Mohan Roy, everyone made the mistake of holding caste to be a religious institution and tried to pull down religion and caste all together, and failed. 
But in spite of all the ravings of the priests, caste is simply a crystallised social institution, which after doing its service is now filling the atmosphere of India with its stench, and it can only be removed by giving back to the people their lost social individuality. 

                   - Swami Vivekananda, 
                      in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal 
                      from Chicago (November 1893)


Not Learning But Being


Thursday, July 18, 2019

Onward, brave lads!

Remember that the nation lives in the cottage. 
But, alas! nobody ever did anything for them. Our modern reformers are very busy about widow remarriage. 
Of course, I am a sympathiser in every reform, but the fate of a nation does not depend upon the number of husbands their widows get, but upon the condition of the masses. 
Can you raise them? Can you give them back their lost individuality without making them lose their innate spiritual nature? 

Can you become an occidental of occidentals in your spirit of equality, freedom, work, and energy, and at the same time a Hindu to the very backbone in religious culture and instincts? 
This is to be done and we will do it. You are all born to do it. 
Have faith in yourselves, great convictions are the mothers of great deeds. 

Onward for ever! Sympathy for the poor, the downtrodden, even unto death -- this is our motto.
Onward, brave lads!

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                  in a Letter to Madras Disciples 
                  from Chicago (January 1894)


Preaching Doctrine of Shraddha


Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Guru Purnima

The one thing necessary is to be stripped of our vanities -- 
the sense that we possess any spiritual wisdom -- and 
to surrender ourselves completely to the guidance of our Guru. 
The Guru only knows what will lead us towards perfection. 
We are quite blind to it. We do not know anything. 
This sort of humility will open the door of our heart for spiritual truths. 

Truth will never come into our minds so long as there will remain the faintest shadow of Ahamkara (egotism). 
All of you should try to root out this devil from your heart. 
Complete self-surrender is the only way to spiritual illumination. 

                    - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Who is Real Guru, 
                       Notes from Lectures and Discourses 


Monday, July 15, 2019

Work From Top to Bottom


Self-Creating Universe

Science means that the cause of a thing is sought out by the nature of the thing itself. 
As step by step science is progressing, it has taken the explanation of natural phenomena out of the hands of spirits and angels. Because Advaitism has done likewise in spiritual matters, it is the most scientific religion. 

This universe has not been created by any extra-cosmic God, nor is it the work of any outside genius. 
It is self-creating, self-dissolving, self-manifesting, One Infinite Existence, the Brahman. 

Tattvamasi Shvetaketo --"That thou art, O Shvetaketu!" 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Address at Lahore, 
                       Lectures From Colombo to Almora


Saturday, July 13, 2019

European Civilization Warp and Woof

The European civilization may be likened to a piece of cloth, of which these are the materials: its loom is a vast temperate hilly country on the seashore; its cotton, a strong warlike mongrel race formed by the inter-mixture of various races; its warp is warfare in defense of one's self and one's religion. 

The one who wields the sword is great, and the one who cannot, gives up his independence and lives under the protection of some warrior's sword. 

Its woof is commerce. 
The means to this civilization is the sword; 
its auxiliary -- courage and strength; 
its aim -- enjoyment here and hereafter. 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    The East and The West 


Immense Idealism with Immense Practicality


Friday, July 12, 2019

Motherhood

… the one thing that fulfills womanhood, that is womanliness in woman, is motherhood. Wait till she becomes a mother; then she will have the same right. That, according to the Hindu mind, is the great mission of woman -- to become a mother. 
But oh, how different! Oh, how different! 

My father and mother fasted and prayed, for years and years, so that I would be born. They pray for every child before it is born. Says our great law-giver, Manu, giving the definition of an Aryan, "He is the Aryan, who is born through prayer". 

Every child not born through prayer is illegitimate, according to the great law-giver. The child must be prayed for. 
Those children that come with curses, that slip into the world, just in a moment of inadvertence, because that could not be prevented -- what can we expect of such progeny? 
Mothers of America, think of that! 

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                  ‘Women of India’, 
                  Talk at Shakespeare Club House, 
                                      Pasadena, California 


Thursday, July 11, 2019

Power of Expression

In India we think -- but unfortunately sometimes we think so deeply that there is no power left for expression. 
Gradually, therefore, it came to pass that our force of expression did not manifest itself before the world, and what is the result of that? 
The result is this -- we worked to hide everything we had. 

It began first with individuals as a faculty of hiding, and it ended by becoming a national habit of hiding -- there is such a lack of expression with us that we are now considered a dead nation. Without expression, how can we live? 
The backbone of Western civilization is -- expansion and expression.  

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                  At Calcutta (11th March 1898), 
                  Lectures From Colombo to Almora


Body - Objective View of Mind


Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Intellect Can Not Reach Self

Religion does not depend on our intellectual assent or dissent. You say there is a soul. Have you seen the soul? 
How is it we all have souls and do not see them? 
You have to answer the question and find out the way to see the soul. … … 

If you and I fight for all eternity about one of these doctrines or documents, we shall never come to any conclusion. 
People have been fighting for ages, and what is the outcome? 
Intellect cannot reach there at all. We have to go beyond the intellect; the proof of religion is in direct perception. 

                           - Swami Vivekananda, 
                             Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York


Tuesday, July 9, 2019

All Selfishness is Slow Suicide

The only sign of life is going outward and forward and expansion. Contraction is death. 
Why should you do good to others? Because that is the only condition of life; thereby you expand beyond your little self; you live and grow. 
All narrowness, all contraction, all selfishness is simply slow suicide, and when a nation commits the fatal mistake of contracting itself and of thus cutting off all expansion and life, it must die. 

Women similarly must go forward or become idiots and soulless tools in the hands of their tyrannical lords. The children are the result of the combination of the tyrant and the idiot, and they are slaves. 
And this is the whole history of modern India. 

Oh, who would break this horrible crystallisation of death? Lord help us! 

                      - Swami Vivekananda, 
                        in a Letter to Manmatha Bhattaharya 
                        from USA (September 1894)

Work Out Advaita Practically


Monday, July 8, 2019

Vedantic Cosmology

… Mr. Tesla was charmed to hear about the Vedantic Prana and Akasha and the Kalpas, which according to him are the only theories modern science can entertain. 
Now both Akasha and Prana again are produced from the cosmic Mahat, the Universal Mind, the Brahma or Ishvara. 

Mr. Tesla thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy. 
I am to go and see him next week, to get this new mathematical demonstration.

In that case, the Vedantic cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations. I am working a good deal now upon the cosmology and eschatology* of the Vedanta. 
I clearly see their perfect unison with modern science, and the elucidation of the one will be followed by that of the other. I intend to write a book later on in the form of questions and answers. 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                        in a Letter to E T Sturdy 
                        from New York (February 1896)


India Dies Not


Saturday, July 6, 2019

Soul-Elevating Ideas from India

Q: What proof is there, Maharaj, that India has freely contributed her knowledge to the rest of the world?

Swamiji: History itself bears testimony to the fact. All the soul-elevating ideas and the different branches of knowledge that exist in the world are found on proper investigation to have their roots in India. 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    Conversations and Dialogues, 
                    recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

Why Should We Be Sympathetic


Friday, July 5, 2019

South India

Their [Tamilian] colossal temples in the South proclaim the triumph of the Veera Shaiva and Veera Vaishnava sects. 

The great Vaishnava religion of India has also sprung from a Tamil Pariah -- shathakopa --"who was a dealer in winnowing-fans but was a Yogin all the while". 
And the Tamil Alwars or devotees still command the respect of the whole Vaishnava sect. 

Even now the study of the Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita and Advaita systems of Vedanta is cultivated more in South India than anywhere else. Even now the thirst for religion is stronger here than in any other place. 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Memoirs of European Travel 


Do Not Pull Down the Ideal