The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Reports in American Newspapers/All Religions are Good
ALL RELIGIONS ARE GOOD
(Washington Post, October 29, 1894)
Mr. Kananda spoke yesterday at the People's Church on the invitation of Dr.
Kent, pastor of the church. His talk in the morning was a regular sermon,
dealing entirely with the spiritual side of religion, and presenting the, to
orthodox sects, rather original proposition that there is good in the
foundation of every religion, that all religions, like languages, are
descended from a common stock, and that each is good in its corporal and
spiritual aspects so long as it is kept free from dogma and fossilism. The
address in the afternoon was more in the form of a lecture on the Aryan
race, and traced the descent of the various allied nationalities by their
language, religion and customs from the common Sanskrit stock.
After the meeting, to a Post reporter Mr. Kananda said: "I claim no
affiliation with any religious sect, but occupy the position of an observer,
and so far as I may, of a teacher to mankind. All religion to me is good.
About the higher mysteries of life and existence I can do no more than
speculate, as others do. Reincarnation seems to me to be the nearest to a
logical explanation for many things with which we are confronted in the
realm of religion. But I do not advance it as a doctrine. It is no more than
a theory at best, and is not susceptible of proof except by personal
experience, and that proof is good only for the man who has it. Your
experience is nothing to me, nor mine to you. I am not a believer in
miracles — they are repugnant to me in matters of religion. You might bring
the world tumbling down about my ears, but that would be no proof to me that
there was a God, or that you worked by his agency, if there was one.
He Believes It Blindly
"I must, however, believe in a past and a hereafter as necessary to the
existence of the present. And if we go on from here, we must go in other
forms, and so comes any belief in reincarnation. But I can prove nothing,
and any one is welcome to deprive me of the theory of reincarnation provided
they will show me something better to replace it. Only up to the present I
have found nothing that offers so satisfactory an explanation to me."
Mr. Kananda is a native of Calcutta, and a graduate of the government
university there. He speaks English like a native, having received his
university training in that tongue. He has had good opportunity to observe
the contact between the native and the English, and it would disappoint a
foreign missionary worker to hear him speak in very unconcerned style of the
attempts to convert the natives. In this connection he was asked what effect
the Western teaching was having on the thought of the Orient.
"Of course," he said, "no thought of any sort can come into a country
without having its effect, but the effect of Christian teaching on Oriental
thought is, if it exists, so small as to be imperceptible. The Western
doctrines have made about as much impression there as have the Eastern
doctrines here, perhaps not so much. That is, among the higher thinkers of
the country. The effect of the missionary work among the masses is
imperceptible. When converts are made they of course drop at once out of the
native sects, but the mass of the population is so great that the converts
of the missionaries have very little effect that can be seen."
The Yogis Are Jugglers
When asked whether he knew anything of the alleged miraculous performances
of the yogis and adepts Mr. Kananda replied that he was not interested in
miracles, and that while there were of course a great many clever jugglers
in the country, their performances were tricks. Mr. Kananda said that he had
seen the mango trick but once, and then by a fakir on a small scale. He held
the same view about the alleged attainments of the lamas. "There is a great
lack of trained, scientific, and unprejudiced observers in all accounts of
these phenomena," said he, "so that it is hard to select the false from the
true."