Vivekananda, Hinduism and India

Vivekananda is worshiped nowadays as a patriot prophet. But was he truly concerned about India as a patriot would? Also did Vivekananda stood for Hinduism only? Was he himself sectarian, a term that he despised strongly and criticized vehemently? If we buy into the opinion of today's politicians and the so called secular liberals and some off the other detractors of Vivekananda these seem to be the case. They portray him as the champion of Brahminical Hinduism, militant Hinduism and aggressive Nationalism. He is given at best the status of a social reformer and a militant nationalist. He is also clubbed in the same bracket as a humanitarian. So how much true are these assessments?

Let me make a bold claim here. Only Vivekananda's disciples and ardent devotees who follow his principles know him truly, rest are mere blind men seeing a part of the elephant and mistaking it as a whole. Two stories come to our mind, both narrated by Vivekananda as part of his lectures, one being that of the frog in the well and other of that of the blind men and the elephant.

So what was Vivekananda?

He was first and foremost a sannyasin and a sannyasin has not country, no birthplace because he is never born. A sannyasin has no caste. It is to be noted that Vivekananda was much vilified by the orthodox Hindus during his lifetime as they asserted that a Sudra has no right to sannyas, only a Brahmin has, apparently that's the position of the scriptures. When Sir Gurudas Bandopadhyay, a leaarned Hindu scholar had argued the same when requested to preside over the assembly in Calcutta to honour Vivekananda's achievement in the parliament of religion. However he was no match for Manamohan Mitra, a householder disciple of Ramakrishna who retorted back to him saying that as a Hindu Brahmin since he had accepted the service of the mlecchas, the scriptures provision a penance through slow burning (tushanal) for him? Was he ready to do that? Gurudas of course was not ready and he was speechless. But that shows how a section of the orthodox conservative Hindus were against him which was manifested later in various ways through direct personal attacks. But Vivekananda was a sannyasin to the core as his Song of Sannyasin depicts. No worldly maya - not of caste, nor of religion, nor that of a country could bound him. But it is true that he stood for Hinduism because first and foremost he belonged to the order of the Hindu sannyasis who fearless proclaimed the truth in his religion in front of the world. Also there is no doubt that he genuinely loved India and encouraged all his friends and well wishers to do so. He could not bear a single criticism of India and he wanted wholeheartedly that India should rise once more, restored to its old glory, nay, even more glorious than before. It is also true that he felt strongly for the masses. He was deeply disturbed by the social evils, the poverty, the famines, the illiteracy, the lack of even the barest minimum of comfort for a large section of the masses who were deprived by the ruling political elite for so long. He was also deeply disturbed by the exploitative British rule whose only occupation was to loot, to move resources from India to Europe, sucking the blood of the poor peasants and artisans. He was also deeply troubled by the fact that whole of India was so engulfed in darkness that it forgot to struggle, to rise in revolt against its despicable condition. To him struggle against prevailing conditions was the first sign of manliness. So he wanted the country to arise and awake.

The reason behind all these and all his exertions were nothing but spiritual. He wanted India to raise because he believed in his heart and soul that only India has in its store the jewels that can save the world from a self destruction. He knew that a pure materialistic world was moving towards annihilation through selfishness, jealousy, hatred and violence which would rise in proportion to the material wealth that would accrue through industrial revolution. He knew that super rich would corner most of the wealth through their ever increasing greed. He knew that moral values would decline and power hungry world leaders would run for more power, more control and in the process would not hesitate destroying others. The world would become selfish and mad in the pursuit of wealth and ironically in the pursuit of individual happiness at the cost of others - driven by utter selfishness. Technology would improve lives of millions and at the same time sink millions into  the despicable darkness of lethargy, violence, hatred and avarice. 

He knew that all these would come true, but that there was an antidote and India and Hinduism which had formulated in its forest laboratories the solution for all these worldly problems many thousands of years ago were the only rays of hope. Only a rejuvenated India can teach the world, can let it know of its secrets and thus save it. That is the role of leadership that India has to assume in the modern world. That is the reason why he was so concerned about the awakening of India and wanted Hindus to develop that intense sraddha or faith in their culture and legacy. He knew that without this sraddha they will not be eligible to know or teach their greatest and grandest secrets to the world and save the mankind. He knew that if Hindus are unable to develop that sraddha and unable to know and respect themselves they will never earn respect from others, because self respect is the first steep in getting respect from others. One who hates his own culture and legacy may earn some applause from the enemies of his culture and legacy but never gets respect, even from that enemy. So we see that the secular liberal media around us which hates Hinduism in general and the notion of a strong nation state of India in particular is so much held in low esteem even by its sponsors and supporters. Like his story of the lion and the sheep where the lion cub thought itself to be a sheep and behaved in that fashion until the real lion came and showed him his true nature, he came and showed us our true nature, our potential, our legacy so that we can cultivate self respect and awake from this slumber of ignorance and then proclaim the greatest and grandest spiritual truths in front of the world which is dying for the sake of that nectar. That was the reason for his ardent desire to see India rise and Hinduism to flourish. That was his mission - to set the gigantic wheel of karma in motion which was stalled for thousands of years through ignorance and lethargy - tama guna.

As to his humanitarian side, it was purely because he was established in advaita, the non dual consciousness where he identified himself with everything and everybeing. That was why he could feel intensely for the misery of the others. The Self is one, manifested as many. He was that eternal consciousness and existence and present in all beings, to share their misery and happiness and was therefore empathy personified, not in the sense as the today's liberal humanitarians think him to be. And that is the state of consciousness, the advaitic state that he wanted the world to rise to, because only in the plane of non dual consciousness all hatred, violence, malice, selfishness, greed and injury to the others can stop. Who will harm others, who will hate others, who will inflict injuries on others knowing the others to be him only - the Self? But the light of the knowledge is hidden in Gita, in the Upanishads, in the Vedantic texts and not known to the world at large, esp. to the masses. This is the reason why he cared so much for India to rise again and take the centre stage, so that the knowledge flows to every nook and corner of the world and awaken the dormant consciousness of the mankind. As Sister Nivedita said, one of the greatest consequences of his mission was that in a sweeping gesture he eradicated the difference between sacred and secular and brought forward new definitions of virtue and sin - all selflessness being virtue and any selfishness being sin. Because through selfishness we injure others and in the process injure ourselves, that is the secret behind karma. There is only one Self. So any selfishness is really injuring one self alone. If we injure ourselves we reap its fruits, i.e. suffer pain. When all actions are done as worship, giving up all selfish gains and working only for a higher purpose like helping others, serving others, that work is no different from meditation. The world becomes purer in degree through that endevour and thus we as a whole get liberated. This is what he came to teach and stood for all his life. He was a spiritual giant. 

One member of the so called oppressed  classes had argued in a forum, if Vivekananda was a humanitarian per excellence why did he proclaim the superiority of Brahmins over others, and he took one of his quotes to reinforce his argument. Of course he did not bother to consider his other quotes which denounced the oppressive dimensions of the caste system in the strongest term as that would not suit with his agenda. But he and others need to understand that whenever Vivekananda spoke about the Brahmins, he never spoke about the caste - but only about the ideal. the ideal of Brahminhood is purity, of renunciation, of leaving every material pursuits for the sake of knowledge, including the knowledge of the ultimate reality. That was what he idealized. When he said that all of us need to be elevated to the status if Brahmin hood he meant that all of us need to manifest that divinity, that purity, reach that state where we shun the material world and its hypocrisy like excreta of crow and strive for the highest knowledge, the realization of the Supreme. And that has been one single focus of his in every sphere wherever he has been identified with - not in the secular or political sense, but in the sense of achieving the highest in spirituality, in seeking the Truth, in manifesting the divinity that is within all of us.