In India religion was never shackled.
No man was ever challenged in the selection of his Ishta Devata, or his sect, or his preceptor, and religion grew, as it grew nowhere else.
On the other hand, a fixed point was necessary to allow this infinite variation to religion, and society was chosen as that point in India. As a result, society became rigid and almost immovable.
For liberty is the only condition of growth.
On the other hand, in the West, the field of variation was society, and the constant point was religion.
Conformity was the watchword, and even now is the watchword of European religion, and each new departure had to gain the least advantage only by wading through a river of blood.
The result is a splendid social organisation, with a religion that never rose beyond the grossest materialistic conceptions.
- Swami Vivekananda,
‘Reply to the Madras Address’
No man was ever challenged in the selection of his Ishta Devata, or his sect, or his preceptor, and religion grew, as it grew nowhere else.
On the other hand, a fixed point was necessary to allow this infinite variation to religion, and society was chosen as that point in India. As a result, society became rigid and almost immovable.
For liberty is the only condition of growth.
On the other hand, in the West, the field of variation was society, and the constant point was religion.
Conformity was the watchword, and even now is the watchword of European religion, and each new departure had to gain the least advantage only by wading through a river of blood.
The result is a splendid social organisation, with a religion that never rose beyond the grossest materialistic conceptions.
- Swami Vivekananda,
‘Reply to the Madras Address’
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