The Tongue of Flame

T.C.A. RAMANUJAM

“So many of us are mere talents, clever children in the play of life, that when genius stands in our presence we can only bow down before it as an act of God, a continuance of creation. Such men are the very life­blood of history, to which politics and industry are but frame and bones.”     
–Will Durant

It is 100 years since Swami Vivekananda delivered his immortal address at the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. At 10.30 AM that day in September 1893, ten strokes of the new Liberty Bell, each stroke representing one of the ten chief religions represented in the Parliament – Judnaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hin­duism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shin­toism, Zoroastrianism, Catholicism and Protestatism – announced the opening of the Parliament. Thrice, Swami Vivekananda was called upon to speak, each time he said, “no” “not yet”, until the Chairman was puzzled and wondered ifhe would speak at all. Whereas all the speakers had come prepared and came with ready-made speeches, Swami Viveka­nanda had made no preparations but bowed down to Devi Saraswathi in the afternoon and addressed the audience. “Brothers and Sisters of America.” The audience was electrified and rose to its feet to applaud him continuously for two minutes.

In the words of his biographer, Sailendra Nath Dhar, “He greeted the youngest of the nations in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world, the Vedic order of Sannyasis, a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. He quoted fromthe Gita, “Akasham patitam toyam yatha gatchamati sagaram. Sarvadeva namaskaram kesavam pratdigatchati” and explained, “as the different streams having their source in differ­ent places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O! Lord, the different paths which men take, through different tendencies, various though they ap­pear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.” The sense of universality of the speech captured the continent of America. Said Romain Rolland, “It was like a tongue offlame among the grey wastes of cold dissertation, it fired the souls of the listening throng.”

As the patriotic monk of India landed in Chicago, he was faced with the twin problems of finance and rec­ognition. Mendicancy was unknown to USA. He was not aware of the formali­ties and credentials necessary to enter the Parliament of Religions in Septem­ber, 1893. Sister Nivedita commented, “Nothing could have been more typical of the unorganizedness of Hinduism itself than this going forth of its repre­sentative unannounced, and without further credentials, to enter the strongly guarded doors of the world’s wealth and power.” Seeing him in penury and trouble, the Theosophists, (whom he had rebuffed when they of­fered to support him if only he em­braced their school of philosophy) glee­fully gloated. “Now the Devil is going to die; God bless us all’ (Mrs. Annie Besant was present on the dais when Vivekananda rose to speak). It was Prof. J. H. Wright of Harvard, who came to the rescue of the Swami both with finance and authority and facili­tated his easy attendance at the Par­liament. It was only on 2nd September 1893 that he got intimation about his admission.

The Parliament met thrice daily for 17 days and Vivekananda delivered 8 lectures in the Scientific Section of the Parliament. He emphasised the all ­inclusiveness of Hinduism which cov­ered within its sweep different shades of religious thoughts from absolute monism to the lowest idolatry. The Vedas are not books but represented “a treasury of spiritual laws” which existed even before they were discov­ered, like Newton’s law of gravity. He gave it message that was novel and refreshing to his American audience. “Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! Even ye that reside in higher spheres! The Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth, not sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.”

The Christian missionaries were aghast. The Christian Literature Soci­ety came up with a pamphlet shout­ing. “The Swami by his denial of sin, shows that he knows nothing of true religion and that he is a teacher of deadly sin. Woe! Woe! Woe! To those who follow a blind guide to their own destruction.” The message, however, was enthusiastical1y received by the thousands of Christians in the audi­ence and a poem appeared in a jour­nal.

“Then I heard Th’handsome
Hindu monk, drest up in
orange dress,
Who said that all humanity was
part of God – no less.
An’ he said we are not sinners,
so I comfort took, once more
while th’ Parl’ment of Religions
roared with approving roar.”

–Aunt Hannah on the Parliament of Religions.

The Swami concluded his speech by holding out the idea of a universal religion, having no temporary, spatial or sectarian bounds embracing in its catholicity. Every human being, from the lowest grovelling savage, not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by the virtues of his head and heart, above humanity.

After the address, the wandering mendicant from India had become some sort of a celebrity overnight. But at the same time, as he retired the first night after the Chicago address and lay upon his bed, the terrible contrast between poverty-stricken India and the opulent America dawned upon him irresistibly. All the adulation showered on him in USA only agonised him and he cried out, “O! Mother! What shall I do with name and fame when my motherland remains sunk in the utmost penury? Who will raise the masses in India, show me O! Mother, how I can help them?” It was this agony that was responsible for the founding of the Ramakrishna Mission and Ramakrishna Mutt.

In yet another address at Chi­cago entitled. “Religion Not the Crying Need for India.” he emphasised, “It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion.” He regarded modem science as the manifestation of relig­ious spirit for it sought to understand truth by its sincere efforts. 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 Brahma”. The Vedic ideal was to see God in man and this was the real God vision, man is the greatest of all.” so thundered Vivekananda from the pulpits of the Parliament of Religions. The message of the Upanishad, according to him was fearlessness and scientific reason­ing power. For India, he gave the pre­scription: “What our country now wants are muscles of iron and nerves of steel, gigantic wills which nothing can resist, which can penetrate into the mysteries and the secrets of the universe and will accomplish their purpose in any fashion, even if it meant going down to the bottom of the ocean and meeting death face to face.”

He inculcated the religion of patriotism, patriotism as a religion of humanity. “May I be born and reborn and suffer a thousand miseries if only I worship the only God in whom I believe; the sum total of all souls and above all my God, the wicked, my God, he afflicted my God, the poor of all races.”

Louis Fisher in his “Life of Mahatma Gandhi” observed, “each nation fashions its intellect according to its own ethos. Ancient Rome produced jurists; Greece had its demogogues; Russia produced dicta­tors; Great Britain had its traders and diplomats and America its techno­crats. It was left to India, to produce saints and sages from times immemorial.”

Will Durant’s definition of great­ness excluded all who have not had an enduring influence upon mankind. According to him, the history of a nation is properly the history of its greatmen. “What are the rest of us but willing brick and mortar in their hands, that they may make a race a little finer than ourselves, India, as a nation was made a little finer by Vivekananda.