Swami Vivekananda’s Unveiling of a

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA’S UNVEILING
OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION

The parliament of Religions was in­deed a much acclaimed and publicised event at the world’s Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Never before had the world seen, a congregation of the representatives of the world’s great reli­gions, of such a magnitude.

Swami Vivekananda had foreseen his meteoric ascent as a world prophet when he remarked to Swami Turiyananda before leaving for America: “The Parliament of Religions is being organised for this (point­ing to himself). Mymind tells me go. You will see it verified at no distant date. (Burke Marie Louise - ‘Swamy Vivekananda’) The objectives of the Parliament in a nutshell, were to give mankind a vision of the truths upheld by each religion, explore the funda­mental unity underlying them, examine their role in mitigating world problems and fi­nally the most important, to bind all nations in a fraternal bond with the hope of estab­lishing an enduring global peace and harmony. Indeed the stage was set for the coronation of ‘a prince among men’ (Swamy Nikhilananda’s Vivekananda - A Biogra­phy).

Swami Vivekananda was to address the Parliament of Religions on ‘Hinduism’. When he began his unique historic address with “Sisters and Brothers of America”, “seven thousand people rose to their feet as a tribute to something they knew not what” wrote Mrs S. K. Blodgett who later became Swamiji’s hostess in Los Angeles. So stirred by Swamiji’s majestic figure, imposing glance and the toll of his voice, ‘rich as a bronze bell’ were the audience that the applause which lasted several minutes was symbolic of the awakening of human hearts to a reminis­cence of their former glory of spiritual communion. This momentous experience, subtly and surely, transformed the hearts of men hastening humanity towards its goal of true religious harmony.

In the opening session he revealed India as a land of forebearance and all encompassing love in which many persecuted races and the refugees of all religions from all nations of the earth took shelter and achieved solace. Hinduism not only toler­ated but also accepted the fundamental and universal truth underlying all religions. To demonstrate this he reiterated the eternal Vedantic message: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their waters 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”. He was the first to present India in her true light to the West dispelling the centuries of negative thinking that dominated the west­ern minds about the East. He concluded on a fervent hope that the bell that tolled in the morning of September 11, 1893 in honour of the convention would sound “the death-knell of all fanaticism of all persecution with the sword or with the pen and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal”.

On 15th Sept, 1883 Swamiji ex­plained why the human mind was always at so much variance. He illustrated the cause of this variance by telling a little story to his audience who were already enthralled by his opening address. He told the famous story of a frog in a well visited by a frog from the sea. The frog in the well was sure nothing could be bigger than its well. Drawing a parallel in human life, Swamiji compares people of dif­ferent faiths having a narrow perspective that no other religion apart from their own could be greater.

On 19th September 1893, he pre­sented before the Parliament his famous paper on ‘Hinduism’. Hinduism was like a Ocean in which all spiritual flights were absorbed and assimilated in that vast body of thought. It was based on the revelations of the Vedas which stretch out to infinity. The spiritual laws enshrined in the Vedas were in existence much before its discovery. Says Swami Vivekananda: “Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist even if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual rela­tions between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spir­its, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them”. He refreshes human memory of the state of purity and perfection which is existing in men if only they would strive to bring it to the fore. This also adds up to the Universal Brotherhood of man anchored by a univer­sal religion which is also existing despite the voices of dissension.

He metaphorically compares cre­ation and the creator to be two lines running parallel to each other without a beginning and without an end. He likens religion to be a science in which God is the ever active providence by whose cosmic power chaotic systems are destroyed and disharmony is turned to heavenly harmony. Man decries his fate in this world in which he is put to untold hardships and miseries by a cruel God whereas some lead a happy existence. The promise held out to him of a future happiness does not convince him as it goes against his vision of the creator as all com­passionate and just God. But this conflicting proposition is instinctively resolved when Swamiji explains the invincibility and im­mortality of the spirit; all else is transient. “Him the sword cannot pierce - him the fire cannot burn - him the water cannot melt; - him the air cannot dry”.

The soul is a circle with its centre in the body and circumference which is beyond the bounds of matter. It is because of this that the essentially free, unbounded, holy, pure and perfect nature that the spirit is misconstrued as matter. But this knowledge brings further delusion as to how the human soul-eternal, perfect and infinite has imper­fection. Death brings about a temporary shift in the focus from one body to another: The soul is in a constant state of evolution to attain a purity which will release it from material bondage forever.

Swami Vivekananda voices the question that rises in innumerable human minds: “Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy of good and bad actions - a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging, ever rushing uncom­promising current of cause and effect; a little moth placed under the wheel of causation which rolls on crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow’s tears or the orphan’s cry? Man with a sinking heart pleads in futility against the hopelessness and inescapability of the law of nature. This cry was quitened by that divine benevolence which dispelled this gloom in a trash. An inspired voice of hope and consolation pro­claimed the much awaited glad tidings which Swamiji pronounced to his audience with devastating effect. He addressed his audience in a lofty strain: “Children of immortal bliss.”......“heirs of immortal bliss.....Ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings-Ye divinities on earth-sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature.” Mankind labouring under the ages of condi­tioning which reduced it to the label “sinners” was shocked at this revolutionary form of address. It is from here that Swami Vivekananda begins the process of recondi­tioning mankind by constantly reminding it of the divine nature of all creation and the unity of all existence. His exaltation of man as the highest object of worship bestows a new dimension in the spiritual pursuit of man. He rouses men from their delusions of weakness to a conscious conviction of their strength to rise above matter to the sublim­ity of Godhead. This realisation is echoed in the prayer that is universal in all religions: “...Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength, Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life.” It is the strength derived from this prayer that enables mall to live in this world like a lotus leaf which grows in water but is never moistened by it. This is the doctrine embodied in the Vedas that a man ought to live in the world his heart immersed in God and his hands engaged in work. Swami Vivekananda attributes the constant struggle for perfection, the mani­festation of divinity; reaching and seeing God and becoming one with Him as the sole objective of Hinduism.

The loss of the finite individuality in an infinite ocean of bliss gradually leads to the zenith of spiritual joy which is the uni­versal consciousness. If the ultimate goal of science is the search for unity; the science of religion too strives for perfection surpassing the delusive multiplicity and duality of manifestations to merge with the ultimate unity that spans the universe.

Swami Vivekananda asks of us not to reproach men for using idols or temples or churches or books as supports in their spiri­tual progress. This is the lowest stage; but man is to rise higher to mental prayer till he manifests divinity by realising God. Hindu­ism recognises this staged progression. This is very aptly expressed by the adage: “The child is father of the man.” He questions whether it would be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin? According to Hinduism, “... man is not trav­elling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth...all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the Infinite...” It is the dawn of this realisation among men that would bring about accep­tance of the variance in faith. Hinduism recognises that the absolute can be realised, or thought of, or stated through the relative with mankind using images, crosses and crescents as symbolic pegs to hang their spiritual ideas. This need is relative and not imperative.

“... The whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them.” The conflicts and contradictions are only apparent and come from the same truth trying to adjust itself to the diverse circumstances of multifarious natures. Religious faith is like the same light coming through glasses of different colours. This explains the all-encompassing belief of Hinduism in the agnostic Buddhism and atheistic Jainism; the central truth of both is to evolve a God out of man.

Swami Vivekananda concluded his paper on ‘Hinduism’ with a definition of a Universal Religion as one “which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach,...within its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, ... and whose whole scope, whose whole force will be created in aiding humanity to realise its own true di­vine nature.” He sees the star which brightened the Eastern horizon traversing towards the West, sometimes dimmed and at times effulgent, till it has circuited the whole world and once again is rising in the East, a thousand fold more brilliant than it was ever before.

Though he began bygiving an expo­sition of Hinduism, by the end of his address we see a regeneration of this faith, trans­formed by a confluence of all faiths into an eternal wave bathing the shores of the whole universe. Hinduism which had long been groping for support amidst turbulent times had found a strong anchor in Swamiji. He bares the very soul of India in his message. He is indeed a “Condensed India.”

On Sept. 20, 1893, Swamiji empha­sized that religion was not the crying need in the East. There was enough religion, the suffering millions in India were crying for bread with parched throats. “It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion; it is an insult to a starving man to teach him metaphysics.” Swamiji was a strong advo­cate of the development of man, physical and mental. He wanted youth with muscles of iron and nerves of steel in his plan of na­tional rejuvenation.

He also gave a short lecture on “Buddhism, the fulfilment of Hinduism” on 26th Sept, 1893. He acclaimed Buddha as the first being in the world who brought missionarising into practice and was also the first to conceive the idea of proselytising. It was left to us to enjoin the great intellect of Hinduism with the heart, the noble soul and the wonderful humanising power of the great Master, Buddha.

Swamiji addressed the Parliament on a number of occasions. He repeatedly stressed on his conception of universal reli­gion unlimited by space or time uniting all religions into harmonious and magnificient syntnesis, the divinity of the soul, the unity of existence, the non-duality of Godhead. His message visualised the growth and flour­ish of all according to their own belief. The great principles enshrined in the Vedas of inherent divinity of man and his capac­ity for indefinite evolution form the bulwarks of Swamiji’s message to mankind.

Swami Vivekananda addressed the final session of the Parliament on 27th Sep­tember, 1893. He emphasized that the difference between world religions was es­sentially one of expression and not of substance. Their point of similarity lies in the ultimate unity of the soul with the divine creator. To illustrate this he gives us a vision of a plant sprouting from a seed. “The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it’. Does the seed become the earth, or the air or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth.” Similarly every religion must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve its individuality.

The Parliament of Religions had successfully testified to the world that holi­ness, purity and charity; were not the exclusive possessions of any church; every system had men and women of the most exalted character to its credit.