The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Reports in American Newspapers/The Hindu way of life
THE HINDU VIEW OF LIFE
(Brooklyn Times, December 31, 1894)
The Brooklyn Ethical Association, at the Pouch Gallery last night, tendered
a reception to Swami Vivekananda. . . . Previous to the reception the
distinguished visitor delivered a remarkably interesting lecture on "The
Religions of India". Among other things he said:
"The Hindoo's view of life is that we are here to learn; the whole happiness
of life is to learn; the human soul is here to love learning and get
experience. I am able to read my Bible better by your Bible, and you will
learn to read your Bible the better by my Bible. If there is but one
religion to be true, all the rest must be true. The same truth has
manifested itself in different forms, and the forms are according to the
different circumstances of the physical or mental nature of the different
nations.
"If matter and its transformation answer for all that we have, there is no
necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it can [not] be proven
that thought has been evolved out of matter. We can not deny that bodies
inherit certain tendencies, but those tendencies only mean the physical
configuration through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way.
These peculiar tendencies in that soul have been caused by past actions. A
soul with a certain tendency will take birth in a body which is the fittest
instrument for the display of that tendency, by the laws of affinity. And
this is in perfect accord with science, for science wants to explain
everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So these
repetitions are also necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born
soul. They were not got in this present life; therefore, they must have come
down from past lives.
"All religions are so many stages. Each one of them represents the stage
through which the human soul passes to realize God. Therefore, not one of
them should be neglected. None of the stages are dangerous or bad. They are
good. Just as a child becomes a young man, and a young man becomes an old
man, so they are travelling from truth to truth; they become dangerous only
when they become rigid, and will not move further — when he ceases to grow.
If the child refuses to become an old man, then he is diseased, but if they
steadily grow, each step will lead them onward until they reach the whole
truth. Therefore, we believe in both a personal and impersonal God, and at
the same time we believe in all the religions that were, all the religions
that are, and all the religions that will be in the world. We also believe
we ought not only tolerate these religions, but to accept them.
"In the material physical world, expansion is life, and contraction is
death. Whatever ceases to expand ceases to live. Translating this in the
moral world we have: If one would expand, he must love, and when he ceases
to love he dies. It is your nature; you must, because that is the only law
of life. Therefore, we must love God for love's sake, so we must do our duty
for duty's sake; we must work for work's sake without looking for any reward
— know that you are purer and more perfect, know that this is the real
temple of God."
(Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 31, 1894)
After referring to the views of the Mohammedans, the Buddhists and other
religious schools of India, the speaker said that the Hindoos received their
religion through the revelations of the Vedas, who teach that creation is
without beginning or end. They teach that man is a spirit living in a body.
The body will die, but the man will not. The spirit will go on living. The
soul was not created from nothing for creation means a combination and that
means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created it must
die. Therefore, it was not created. He might be asked how it is that we do
not remember anything of our past lives. This could be easily explained.
Consciousness is the name only of the surface of the mental ocean, and
within its depths are stored up all our experiences. The desire was to find
out something that was stable. The mind, the body, all nature, in fact, is
changing. This question of finding something that was infinite had long been
discussed. One school of which the modern Buddhists are the representatives,
teach that everything that could not be solved by the five senses was
nonexistent. That every object is dependent upon all others, that it is a
delusion that man is an independent entity. The idealists, on the other
hand, claim that each individual is an independent body. The true solution
of this problem is that nature is a mixture of dependence and independence,
of reality and idealism. There is a dependence which is proved by the fact
that the movements of our bodies are controlled by our minds, and our minds
are controlled by the spirit within us, which Christians call the soul.
Death is but a change. Those who have passed beyond and are occupying high
positions there are but the same as those who remain here, and those who are
occupying lower positions there are the same as others here. Every human
being is a perfect being. If we sit down in the dark and lament that it is
so dark it will profit us nothing, but if we procure matches and strike a
light, the darkness goes out immediately. So, if we sit down and lament that
our bodies are imperfect, that our souls are imperfect, we are not profited.
When we call in the light of reason, then this darkness of doubt will
disappear. The object of life is to learn. Christians can learn from the
Hindus, and the Hindus from Christians. He could read his Bible better after
reading ours. "Tell your children," he said, "that religion is a positive
something, and not a negative something. It is not the teachings of men, but
a growth, a development of something higher within our nature that seeks
outlet. Every child born into the world is born with a certain accumulated
experience. The idea of independence which possesses us shows there is
something in us besides mind and body. The body and mind are dependent. The
soul that animates us is an independent factor that creates this wish for
freedom. If we are not free how can we hope to make the world good or
perfect? We hold that we are makers of ourselves, that what we have we make
ourselves. We have made it and we can unmake it. We believe in God, the
Father of us all, the Creator and Preserver of His children, omnipresent and
omnipotent. We believe in a personal God, as you do, but we go further. We
believe that we are He. We believe in all the religions that have gone
before, in all that now exist and in all that are to come. The Hindu bows
down to the all religion [sic] for in this world the idea is addition, not
subtraction. We would make up a bouquet of all beautiful colors for God, the
Creator, who is a personal God. We must love Cod for love's sake, we must do
our duty to Him for duty's sake, and must work for Him for work's sake and
must worship Him for worship's sake.
"Books are good but they are only maps. Reading a book by direction of a man
I read that so many inches of rain fell during the year. Then he told me to
take the book and squeeze it between my hands. I did so and not a drop of
water came from it. It was the idea only that the book conveyed. So we can
get good from books, from the temple, from the church, from anything, so
long as it leads us onward and upward. Sacrifices, genuflections, rumblings
and mutterings are not religion. They are all good if they help us to come
to a perception of the perfection which we shall realize when we come face
to face with Christ. These are words or instructions to us by which we may
profit. Columbus, when he discovered this continent, went back and told his
countrymen that he had found the new world. They would not believe him, or
some would not, and he told them to go and search for themselves. So with
us, we read these truths and come in and find the truths for ourselves and
then we have a belief which no one can take from us."
After the lecture an opportunity was given those present to question the
speaker on any point on which they wished to have his views. Many of them
availed themselves of this offer. [1]
- Notes
- ↑ See Complete Works, Vol. V. in the Section, "Questions and Answers".