Social philosophy of Swami Vivekananda

by Baruah Debajit | 2017 | 87,227 words

This study deals with Swami Vivekananda’s social philosophy and his concept of religion. He was the disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Important subjects are discussed viz., nature of religion, reason and religion, goal of religion, religious experience, ways to God, etc. All in the context of Vivekananda....

Chapter 5.1c - The Third Lecture (on Practical Vedanta)

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Vivekananda delivered his 3rd lecture on practical Vedanta in London, 17th Nov, 1896. In this lecture, Vivekananda put importance on the requirement of scientific religion. True religion consists on scientific foundation, not on dogmas and blind faith. According to him the philosophy of Upanishads is scientific for a special reason that its teachings are formulated in accordance with two important laws of scientific thought. These two principles are- 1. Knowledge consists in referring the particular to general and general to universal. 2. Explanations of the facts of nature are to be got from within nature itself, not from extraneous agencies. In Vivekananda’s view Vedic thought has applied these two principles, so Vedic thought can be regarded as scientific. If we observe the worship of God in early Vedic period, we find that it starts with a large number of Devas as object of worship and adoration. They arrived at the conclusion of one God, of whom all others are expression only. In the study of nature also they applied the same principle. In the study of nature from several elements and forms of energy, they arrived at one stuff Akasa and regarded it as the source of all elements, and Prana as the matrix of all energies. These Akasa and Prana are finally unified into the all-embracing prakrti (Nature). Akasa and Prana are manifestation of Prakriti.

Vivekananda refers here to one passage of Vedanta where Shevetaketu a sage asks his father about the truth and the father teaches him different things, and concludes by saying, “that which is the fine cause in all these things, of It are all these things made. That is the All, that is Truth, thou art That o shavetaketu.”^[1] And then he gives various examples. His first example was of a bee. He says “As a bee, o Shavetaketu, gathers honey from different flowers, and as the different honeys do not know that they are from various trees, and from various flowers, so all of us, having come to that Existence, know not that we have done so. Now, that which is that subtle essence, in It all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self and thou, o shavetaketu, are That.”^[2] He gives another example of the rivers running down to the ocean. He says just as the rivers, when they are in the ocean, do not know that they have been various rivers, similarly when we come out of that Existence we do not know that we are that. So on he goes with his teachings. From this example we have known that there is but one existence. We are different manifestations of that Existence only.

It is already mentioned that there are two principles of knowledge. The one principle is that we know by referring the particular to the general and the general to the universal. And the second is that anything of which the explanation is sought is to be explained so far as possible from its own nature. Taking up the first principle, we see that all our knowledge really consists of classifications, going higher and higher. When something happens singly we are dissatisfied. When it can be shown that the same thing happens repeatedly we are satisfied and call it law. When we find that one apple falls, we are dissatisfied; but when we find that all apples fall, we call it the law of gravitation and then we become satisfied. The real fact behind this is that from the particular we deduce the general.

Vivekananda says that when we want to study to study religion, we should apply this scientific process. At this point he criticized the so-called monotheistic religion. The monotheistic religions offer their explanations of the pluralities of nature and life by propounding the theory of one God creating everything else out of what they call ‘Nothing’. Vivekananda argues that if the God of this conception is outside nature and has no basic unity with what they call as ‘Nothing’ out of which God creates nature and other living beings, then that violates the fundamental principles of science that explanation should come from within the phenomenon and not from outside. We can refers here to an example of Vivekananda. When apples fell from tree primitive men thought nothing of the phenomenon, they believed that some spirit sitting on the tree threw the apples. Such an extraneous explanation is not satisfactory in the light of the law of gravitation which seeks to explain the phenomenon on the basis of intrinsic factors. The theory of God outside nature, who manipulates nature as spirits were supposed to manipulate apples, is a very unsatisfactory theory. And when it is said that the idea of creating something absolutely new out of nothing absurdity becomes double-sided. Any scientific theory of evolution holds that the effect is only the cause in another form. This effect is not a totally new production coming out of ‘Nothing’.

It is Vivekananda’s conviction that, it is due to such unscientific features of religion, that thoughtful persons have lost faith in it. And as a result of it, religion has been reduced to national institutions or group concerns. He again adds that modern man is not found to take religion with that seriousness which his ancestors used to do. It is because modern man does not find it satisfying his reason.

The weakness of dualistic religions was first exposed in India by the Buddhists. The Buddhists tried to show that the ideas of God and the soul are gratuitous assumption. These ideas are unnecessary to understand nature and life. The metaphysical position is also the same as there is controversy between Substance and attributes. In the ontological theories of the dualistic schools it is assumed that there is something called ‘Substance’ to which all the qualities adhere. In the same way, many philosophers say that behind the changing phenomena there must be a changeless entity to give the experience of unity. So it is argued that behind the whole changeful universe we must accept a changeless substance, a God as its background. Similarly behind the changing body and mind we must accept the presence of a soul as a changeless substance. Thus both change and changeless or substance and attributes are accepted by the dualists as separate. Dualists in this way try to explain the relation between God and the world and between the soul and the body.

As against this, the Buddhists argue that we have experience only of change or of attributes. According to them the assumption of a substance or a changeless background separate from attributes or changing phenomena is a needless assumption without validity. So the Buddhists argue that there is only the phenomenal, the changing mass i.e., there is only the change. There is no unchanging substratum. There is no need for a permanent substance or God behind it. Similarly, it is unnecessary for the Buddhists to assume a permanent Self behind the changing mind and body. In the case of the individual, a soul behind the body-mind is superfluous assumption.

But Vivekananda opines that, the Buddhists view is also not fully tenable. According to him only Advaita Vedanta gives the satisfactory solution to this problem. Advaita Vedanta admits that there are no two entities as the changing and the changeless, the phenomena and the noumena as assumed by the dualists. According to Vedanta only one exists-either change or changeless, either phenomena or noumena. When the one is seen the other disappears; in other words when the change is seen the changeless vanishes or vice-versa. When the one is seen the other disappears, and if accepted, it can only be as a mere abstraction in reflective moments. If it is thought to have been experienced it is only as a mere appearance without a corresponding object of the same nature. Vivekananda explains the position with the help of the rope-snake illusion. When we experience snake in the rope, there are no two objects-the snake and the rope. There is only one object, i.e. rope. But when the snake is perceived, the rope totally disappears and when the rope becomes visible, the snake disappears. The same logic is applicable to the problem of change and the changeless substratum.

In Vivekananda’s view it is not true that there are two-something changing and something which does not change. It is one and the same entity which appears as change, but from the viewpoint of totality it is changeless. Motion is a necessary experience of the phenomenal, but motion can not be predicted of the whole or the universal. The universe as an all-inclusive whole can not move, though every bit in the universe may be moving. Motion is there when the observer separates himself from the whole. When this identification with the whole is attained there is no motion. Hence there is no two from the viewpoint of totality. When everything including the observer is of the whole, there is no motion.

In this lecture with the help of the above mentioned logic Vivekananda has tried to solve the problem of the personal and the Impersonal idea of God. Vedanta accepts an all-comprehending Absolute which is both change and changeless, the noumenon and the phenomenon. The logic applied above holds good with regard to the problem of personal and the Impersonal idea of God. Vedanta says that we must go to the Impersonal for the explanation of the personal. The personal is limited, whereas the Impersonal is the infinite. Vedanta of course does not want to destroy the personal gods of the theological religions. It just wants to explain them in connection with the Impersonal which is the totality.

Doubts very often comes to man’s mind that if we arrive at the idea of the Impersonal God, the personal will be destroyed, if we arrive at the idea of the Impersonal man, the personal will be lost. Vivekananda shows that the intention of Vedanta is not to destroy the individual, but its real preservation. We can not prove the individual by any other means except by referring to the universal. If we think of individual as separate from everything else in the universe, it can not stand even for a minute. Such a thing separated from the universe never existed. The position of Vedanta is that it has accepted a universal principle which is all-inclusive. Again Vedanta has not destroyed the personal or the particular ideas of anything. Rather it explained them in order to preserve them, in order to give them a higher meaning. The personal ideas of God are not wrong. But they are limited. Such conception of God can not reach the followers of other religions. Vedanta accepts the Impersonal Absolute which includes the personal Gods of the theological religions. So the Vedantic idea of God has fulfilled the first important law of scientific thought that knowledge consists in referring the particular to the general and arriving at a universally applicable law.

Again, according to Vivekananda, the Impersonal Being, which is our highest generalization, is in ourselves, and we are that. This implies that we are the Impersonal Beings. To quote Vivekananda, “You are that Impersonal Being; that God for whom you have been searching all over the universe is all the time yourself-yourself not in the personal sense but in the Impersonal. The man you know now, the manifested, is personalized, but the reality of this is the Impersonal. To understand the personal we have to refer to the impersonal, the particular must be referred to the general, and that Impersonal is the Truth, the Self of man.”^[3]

In this lecture Swami Vivekananda has tried to make us understand the position of monism which is the essential principle of Advaita Vedanta. Vedanta believes only in One. As manifested beings we appear to be separate from each other’s, but our reality is one. The less we think of ourselves as separate from that One, the better for us. The more we think ourselves as separate from the One or the Whole, the more miserable we become. A man can be recognized by the very concept of Man. Vivekananda says that from this monistic principle we get at the basis of ethics. We can not get any ethics from anywhere else except that monistic principle. Vivekananda at this point refers to ethics of some ancient religions which are not general or universal. For example the Hindus say that we must not do this or that because the Vedas say so, but the Christians do not obey the authority of the Vedas. So they do not think it necessary to perform any religious action according to the Vedas. Again, the Christians say that we must do this and not do that because the Bible says so. But that will not be binding on those who do not believe in the authority of the Bible.

Vivekananda argues that we must have a theory which is large enough to include all these various grounds. Just as there are millions of people who are ready to believe in a personal God, similarly there are millions of people in the world who felt that such ideas are not sufficient for them. They want something higher. Wherever religion is not broad enough to include all these minds, the result is that the brightest minds in society are always outside of religion. Therefore religion must be broad enough to include all these minds. Every claim of reason must be judged from the standpoint of reason. It is Vivekananda’s conviction that if one does not take the standard of reason, there can not be any true judgement even in the case of religion. One religion may ordain something very hideous. For example, the Mohammedan religion grants permission to kill all those who are not of their religion. In the Koran it is stated to kill the infidels if they do not become Mohemmedan. If someone tells a Mohemmedan that this is wrong, he would naturally say that this is not wrong because the Koran says so. According to this man anything which is stated in the Koran must not be wrong. Similarly the Hindus believe that creation has come out of the Vedas. They believe this because it is stated in the Vedas. According to them, there are cows in the world because the word ‘cow’ is in the Vedas. They have firm faith that if the word cow had not been in the Vedas, there would have been no cow outside.

Every religion claims that its book only can give us the true command. And this is the cause of conflict between religions. According to Vivekananda, we need to find a standard by which we can make comparison among the religions. There must be some independent authority, and that can not be any book, but something universal. And according to him there is nothing more universal than reason. Therefore we should follow reason and also sympathize with those who do not come any sort of belief following reason. He says, “It is better that mankind should become atheist by following reason than blindly believe in two hundred millions of gods on the authority of anybody.”^[4] He again says, “What we want is progress, development, realization. No theories ever made men higher. No amount of books can help us to become purer. The only power is only in realization, and that lies in ourselves and comes from thinking. Let me think. A clod of earth never thinks;but it remains only a lump of earth. The glory of man is that he is a thinking being.”^[5] Thus, as a rational or thinking being man realizes his self through reason. For this we need not depend on authority of any book. And according to Vivekananda the monistic theory of Vedanta is the most rational of all the religious theories that we can conceive of. Other theories which are partial, little and personal are not rational. And yet monism has its glory that it includes all these partial conceptions of God as being necessary for many. Swami Vivekananda very sincerely admits that though monism has its universality, other particular religions should also exist at the same time. According to him though personal explanation is irrational, yet it is consoling for some peoples whose mental circumference is very limited. These minds want a consoling religion and it is necessary for them. But they have to understand the Impersonal, for it is in and through that alone that these others can be explained.