Spiritualism (Religion) – Its Socio-Political Impact

 

“Religion alone is the life of India and when that goes India will die in spite of politics, in spite of social reforms, in spite of Kubera’s wealth poured upon the head of everyone of its children. It is the backbone, the foundation and the bedrock of our national life. This is the very reason, the raison d’etre, that this nation has lived on in spite of hundreds of years of persecution or nearly a thousand years of foreign rule and oppression.”

“Each nation has a peculiar centre of life and so long as that remains untouched, no amount of misery and misfortune can destroy it. In religion lies the vitality of India and so long as it does not forget this great inheritance of their forefathers, there is no power on earth to destroy it.”

“Each nation has a destiny to fulfill, a message to deliver, a mission to accomplish. Therefore, in case of every nation there is a certain point where the life of that nation lies centered, where rests its nationality and until that is touched the nation cannot die. So at the very start, we must understand the mission of our race, the destiny it has to fulfill, the place it has to occupy in the committee of nations, the note it has to contribute to the harmony of races and where lies its soul”.

Each nation has its own part to play, and hence each nation has its own characteristic and individuality. Each represents one specific note in this harmony of nations and this is its very life, its vitality. In it lies the backbone, the foundation and the bedrock of its national life, and here in this blessed land, the foundation, the backbone, the life centre is only religion and religion alone.

“Everyone born into this world has a bent, a direction towards which he must go, through which he must live, and what is true to an individual is equally true to a nation. Each nation similarly has a peculiar bent, a raison d’être, and a mission to fulfill in the life of the world. Each nation has to make its own result, fulfill its own mission. Political greatness or military power was never the mission of our nation; it never was and never will be. But there has been the other mission given to us, which is to conserve, preserve, and accumulate into a dynamo all the spiritual energy of the race, and that concentrated energy is to pour forth like a deluge on the world whenever circumstances are propitious.” It is the solace of its life and will be the solace of its death.

So, it is from India once again that the wave must start which will spiritualise the materialistic civilisation of the world; as the burning fire of materialism which is scorching the core of the hearts of millions can only be doused by the life giving water of our spiritual thoughts.

“India, the motherland and eternal mine of spirituality, stands transfigured, as a beacon of hope to everyone in search of Him who is the only real existence in this universe of vanishing shadows.”

India lives to this day for it has the mission of spiritual ordering of the universe. It has to play its exalted role in this consummation in her own silent ways. Vivekananda who can be acclaimed as the most important architect of modern India, expounded this Indian synthesis in a compressed statement of five propositions, namely :–
a. “Each soul is potentially Divine and free.
b. The goal of life is to manifest this Divinity by controlling external nature by science and internal nature by religion.
c. The way to do it is either by unattached work (Karma-yoga) or worship (Bhakti-yoga) or psychic control (Raj-Yoga), or philosophy (Gyan-yoga)- by one or more of all these.
d. This is the whole of Religion.
e. Doctrines or dogmas or rituals or books, temples or forms are but secondary details.”

“We are destined by divine Providence to play the spiritual note in the harmony of nations and it is rejoicing to see that we have not yet lost the grand traditions which have been handed down to us by our glorious forefathers, of whom any nation can be proud. It gives me hope and faith to know that the heart of the nation is still there and is sound. India is still living, who says she is dead?”

“Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force and competition as its ceremonies, and the human soul as its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be.”

The Indian nation is deathless; it cannot die, so long its people do not give up their hard earned spirituality.

The day, India will lose her spirituality and begin to flirt with other notions, a curse will fall on it and it will get petrified.

“Religion is the theme of our national life. It seems that we are going to change this theme of our national life, that we are going to exchange the backbone of our existence, that we are trying to replace a spiritual backbone by a political one. And if we could succeed, the result would be annihilation. But it will not be.”

“In India, religious life forms the centre, the keynote of the whole music of our national life; and if any nation attempts to throw off its national vitality-the direction which has become its own through the transmission of centuries – that nation dies if it succeeds in the attempt. Therefore, if we succeed in the attempt to throw off our religion and take up either politics, or society, or any other thing as our centre, as the vitality of our national life, the result will be that we will become extinct. To prevent this, we must make all and every thing work through that vitality of our religion. Let all our nerves vibrate through the backbone of our religion.”

“Now you understand clearly where the soul of this ogress is – it is in religion. Because no one was able to destroy that, therefore this nation is still living, having survived so many troubles and tribulations. Well some one asks, ‘what is the use of keeping the soul of a nation in religion? Why not to keep it in social or political independence, as is the case with other nations?’ It is very easy to talk like that……… The fact is, that the river has come down a thousand miles from its source in the mountains; does it, or can it, go back to its source? If it ever tries to trace back its course, it will simply dry up by being dissipated in all directions. Anyhow the river is sure to fall into the ocean, sooner or later, either by passing through open and beautiful plains or struggling through grimy soil. If our national life of these ten thousand years has been a mistake, then there is no help for it; and if we try now to form a new character, the inevitable result will be that we shall die”.

“For good or evil, our vitality is concentrated in our religion. You cannot change it. You cannot destroy it and put in its place another. You cannot transplant a large growing tree from one soil to another and make it immediately take root there. For good or evil, the religious ideals have been flowing into India for thousands of years; for good or evil, the Indian atmosphere has been filled with ideals of religion for shining scores of centuries; for good or evil, we have been born and brought up in the very midst of these ideas of religion, till it have entered into our very blood and tingled with every drop in our veins, and have become one with our constitution, became the very vitality of our lives. Can you give up such a religion without rousing the same energy in reaction, without filling the channel which this mighty river has cut out for itself in course of thousands of years? Do you want that the Ganga should go back to its icy bed and begin a new course? Even if that was possible, it would be impossible for this country to give up her characteristic course of religious life and take for herself a new career of politics or something else. This is the line of its life, this is the line of its growth and this is the line of its well-being – to follow the track of religion.”

“We, in India, very earnestly feel that our vigour, our strength, nay our national life is in religion. Whether this is right or wrong, but for good or evil it is there; we cannot get out of it. We have it now and forever and we have to stand by it even if we have not the same faith in our religion. We are bound by it and if we give it up, we are smashed to pieces. That is the life of our race and that must be strengthened. We have withstood the shocks of centuries simply because we took great care of it, we sacrificed everything for it. Our forefathers underwent everything boldly even death itself, but preserved their religion. Temples after temples were broken down by the foreign invaders but no sooner had the wave passed over then the spires of the temples rose once again. Mark, how these temples bear the sign of hundreds of attacks and a hundreds of regenerations, continually destroyed and continually springing up out of the ruins, rejuvenated and strong as ever! That is the national mind, that is the national life-current. Follow it up and it leads to glory. Give it up and we die; death will be the only result, annihilation the only effect, the moment we step beyond that life-current. I do not mean to say that other things are not necessary, that political or social improvements are not necessary. What I mean to say and mean for you to bear in mind is that they are secondary here and that religion is primary. The Indian mind is first religious than anything else.”

The spiritual motive has always dominated the Indian mind. It is this spirituality and not any great political or social structure that has enabled it to successfully meet the ravages of time and accidents of history. Though many a times, external invasions and internal dissensions came very near to crush its civilization yet it has held its head high. The Greeks and the Moguls, the French and the Portuguese or English have attempted in turns to suppress it but it has never been finally subdued, rather it fanned its flames to burn more vigorously. Throughout its life, it has been living with one single purpose of fighting for the truth, and may be that it has blundered but it did what it was capable of and called upon to do.

“In prosperity and adversity, in joy and sorrow, India has clung to God. She has acquired a spirituality which has stood the test of time and circumstances. Religion is not an opinion with her but a deep national conviction. It is the sanction behind her voice which is gentle, yet unmistakable in its utterance and hope inspiring.”

Religion is not a weathercock to be tossed about with every whiff of the wind, scientific or otherwise. Religion enshrines the eternal laws of life. Therefore, practice of science, politics or all other things should be so ordered as not to come into conflict with those basic principles of life.

Politics and all other things never formed the core of Indian life, but religion and spirituality have been the only basis upon which it lived and thrived and has got to live in future.

Spirituality is the dominant characteristic of the Indian mind. It has a tremendous bearing on its culture, social life and intellectual thinking. Spiritual experience is the basis of its great civilization.

The basis of our nationhood was never the material or political power; otherwise our fate would have been no better than that of those nations who rose and died never to rise again. India has watched for centuries the meteoric nations of the world flash across the horizon and sink into oblivion. The band of its devoted children have cemented with their blood and sweat the past with the present for a glorious future. They are the one who instilled the spiritual content of our being into the mind of the people.

When Swami Vivekananda visited Delhi in 1891, the ruins of imperial greatness impressed on him the ephemeral nature of all human glory and the permanence of the spirit, which neither comes nor goes. At the same time the historian in him found in Delhi the symbol of immortal glory of Indian people, with its grand composite culture.

But mark you, if you give up that spirituality, leaving it aside to go after the materialistic civilisation of the West, the result will be that very soon you will be extirpated; because the backbone of the nation will be broken, the foundation upon which the national edifice has been built will be undermined and the result will be annihilation all round.

“Therefore, whether you believe in spirituality or not, but for the sake of our national life you have to get a hold on spirituality and keep to it. Then stretch the other hand out and gain all you can from other races, but everything must be subordinated to that one ideal of life; and out of that a wonderful, glorious, future India will come. – I am sure it is coming – a greater India than she ever was.”

Our nation is a conflux of two powerful streams of culture – our own ancient and the modern Western heritage. Freedom is the watchword of our national spiritual thoughts and also of the modern Western socio-political thoughts.

“Any attempt to uproot our ancient and life giving-faith, a faith which has sustained us for centuries and produced the finest flowers of human race, is bound to bring about sure national disaster.”

We shall achieve worldly greatness but not at the cost of tremendous destiny awaiting every human being which beckons every man to be free and fearless and experience the acme of bliss here and now, and not in any post-mortem life. These are not mere words; great people have lived and experienced these ideals.

In India, religion is the main current of our national life; so we have to strengthen it and let the national life move along with it.

To the Indian mind there is nothing higher than religious ideals; this is the keynote of our national life. It is not only true that in our case the ideal of religion is the highest ideal, but it is also the only possible means to work; working in any other line, without first strengthening this, would be disastrous. “So, before flooding India with socialistic and political ideas, first deluge the land with true religious ideas.”

“Though whirlwind after whirlwind of foreign invasions have passed over the devoted head of India, though centuries of neglect on our part and contempt on the part of our conquerors have visibly dimmed the glories of this ancient land, though many a stately columns on which it rested, many a beautiful arches and many a marvelous corners have been washed away by the inundations that deluged the land for centuries, yet the centre is all sound, the keynote is unimpaired. The spiritual foundation upon which this marvelous monument of glory of God and charity to all beings has been reared, stands unshaken, strong as ever.”

“Hidden under the ashes of apparent death, the fire of our national life is yet smouldering. The life of this nation is religion, its language is religion, and its ideology is religion; and your politics, society, municipality, plague prevention work and famine relief work – all these things will be done as they have been done all along here, viz. only through religion; otherwise all your frantic yelling and bewailing will end in nothing, my friend!” Therefore, firstly and foremostly, we must keep a firm hold on our age-old spirituality – that unestimable gift handed down to us by our great forefathers.

It is true that when we look around us today, we do not find so much evidence of spirituality on the surface of our national life. The surface of it seems distressing and depressing. But in the depths of our national consciousness, Swami Vivekananda experienced the tangible pulsations of an intense spiritual energy. We have only to muster and apply these spiritual energy resources to our actual life situations, so that we may overcome not only our current spiritual and moral malnutrition but may also develop the ability to properly harness our physical energy resources to tide over our material backwardness.

Swami Vivekananda had always stressed on the necessity of keeping religion as the backbone of our national life if the nation has to live, because India lives so long as its religion lives. Therefore, it must make religion the fundamental basis of its living. It is religion and religion alone which makes it the most sacred and venerated in the community of nations. From time immemorial, ideas after ideas have marched from her, but every word has been said with a blessing behind and peace before it.

“Vivekananda was deeply impressed by the enormous spiritual energies that India had accumulated by her long record of perseverance and austerity. His mission was to cut a perennial outlet channel of social action from this reservoir, keeping at the same time its inlet channel of inward meditation flowing clean and steady. The water of such a social action alone has the quality and power to irrigate the fields of our individual and collective lives in a fundamental way; for it alone can provide the root nourishment to the human personality, with its economic, political, intellectual and moral dimensions getting nourished automatically just as leaves and branches get watered by watering the root of the tree.”

Religion is a constitutional necessity of the human mind; we have not only to love religion but we have to become merged into it; it is our life.

Since historic times, religion has been the most vital force molding our individual and collective lives; it is even so today. It has given us strength and knowledge to withstand the vicissitudes of our national life along with resilience and adaptability to adjust to the changing times and an assimilative power to synthesize the new with the old, making for continuity in the context of progress.

The aim of an ideal religion should be to help one to live and to prepare one to die at the same time.

“Religion is not merely refraining from evils, but it is persistent performance of noble deeds.”

“Religion is essentially a spiritual discipline and realization leading to the qualitative improvement of human life. This has been its central theme and function throughout history except when it has been dominated by non-religious forces. It has been the nursery of man’s moral life, has tamed his animal impulses, raised him to heights of self -effacing altruism and service and made him to reach out to be human and universal. The true mystics and saints of all religions, barring those on whom such honour has been thrusted for political and other extraneous considerations, are a lovable and adorable group, representing the advance march of human evolution to the summit of fulfillment.”

“Death is better than a vegetating ignorant life; it is better to die on the battle field than to live a life of defeat.” This is the basis of religion.

“If a man rests content with the present and gives up all searches into the beyond, mankind will have to go back to the animal plane once again. It is religion, the inquiry into the beyond that makes the difference between man and animal. It has been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upward whereas all others look downward. This looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection is what is called salvation. It does not at all relate to the amount of money in your pocket or the dress you wear or the house you live in but to the wealth of spiritual thoughts in your brain. That is what makes for human progress and is the source of all material and intellectual progress, the motive power and enthusiasm which pushes mankind forward. Religion gives man eternal life and makes this human animal a God. Take away religion from the human society and what will remain; nothing, but a mass of brutes.”

It is sometimes said that religion has become a spent force and has outlived its utility since it can no more answer to the demands of the modern scientific world; hence it has now become redundant. This is the Marxist and rationalist view of religion. They contend that religion is a sinister barrier to all kinds of progress – social, political, economic or intellectual. According to them religion is a misfortune for man today, it is not a help that sustains but a hindrance that impedes and therefore should be discarded to achieve any kind of social progress.

In reply to them we say, it is true, though rapid advancement has been made in scientific and material fields, yet in spite of our boasted achievements and progress in these areas, have we not moved backward as a man? Have we moved forward in social feeling or sympathy? There still lies the savage in every one of us; today, civilization is nothing but merely the external trappings on the old savage. This hidden savageness in man is posing a serious problem for us to face and solve. Our rationality and enlightenment are but skin-deep. The devil of self-centeredness has become so omnipresent and omnipotent that it has swept aside all our rationality and humanity. The task before us is to tame this savage in us and evolve an integrated personality and a dynamic character which will retain the precious vigour of the savage but chastened under the guidance of enlightened reason. Untamed passions create the temper in the individual and society tending to disrupt the even course of life. And for this, we have to look to religion for help to bring about harmony and adjustment in a world which is so ill-adjusted.

“Education has yet to be in the world and civilization – it has begun nowhere yet. Ninety nine decimal nine percent of human race is more or less savage, even now. The tiger in us is only asleep; it is not yet dead. When opportunity comes, it jumps up and uses its claws and fangs.”

“Religion has thus to play a vital role and is not outmoded. Far from it, if, after years of civilisation, democracy and progress, men could wage two savage wars in course of twenty five years to destroy each other, can kill innocent people without any thought, can we call men civilised and say that we have outgrown the need of religion? No, our passions are not tamed, the animal in us still reigns supreme. Today, when we are required to live in harmony, not only among ourselves but also with the environment around us (integrity within and integrity without) religion has to play a major role and civilisation has to invite religion to its aid today.”

“This role (of religion) has been emphasized in all the great religions of the world. Each one of them has tried to evolve harmony out of chaos in man and society. If we have not attained the measure of success, the fault lies with us, and not with religion. We have failed them. We have invested their teachings with dogmatic rigidity which the founders had not intended, for they believed in growth and progress. It is our want of knowledge of the true meaning and purpose of religion that is at fault, not religion itself. Politicians and statesmen, democrats and dictators, presidents and kings, all come and go but the prophets of religion remain and endure forever. In spite of its present handicaps, religion is playing its role today as in the past. The function of religion is to inspire us to live a life of harmony amongst us and with our environment.”

‘The arguments produced against religion are – that it does not conduce to well-being in this world, does not bring gold to us, does not make us robbers, does not make the strong to stand upon the bodies of the weak and feed themselves with their lifeblood, does not bring any grist to the grinding mill, any strength to the muscles; what is there in such a religion? To which it replies ‘Children, you are the slaves of the senses; there is only finiteness in the senses, there is only ruination in the senses; the three short days of luxury here bring only ruin at last. Give it up all, renounce the love of the senses and the world; that is the way to religion’.

For those who are content to live with the objects of senses and think in a slovenly way, it is very easy to ridicule all things relating to religion or spirituality because to them it is all absurd and unreal. But to the others the knowledge of the nature of soul and God seems to be essential.

“Religion does not live in bread, does not dwell in a house. Again and again you hear this objection advanced. “What good can religion do? Can it take away the poverty of the poor and give them more clothes?” Supposing it can not, would that prove the untruth of religion?” However, can the knowledge by which freedom from the worldly bondage is attained, not bring ordinary material prosperity? Certainly it can.

Utility is not the test of religion. Nevertheless, there is the highest utility in it. Happiness is what everyone is looking for, but in things which are evanescent and not real. No happiness was ever found in the senses or enjoyment of senses but religion can give us that ultimate bliss.

There are people, and a good number of them too in the world who are convinced that only that is of use and utility which brings to man creature-comforts. Anything which does not bring them money or physical comforts is of no use. In every mind, utility, however, is conditioned by its own peculiar wants. Therefore, to men who never rise higher than eating, drinking, begetting progeny and dying, the only gain is sensual-enjoyments. How they are wasting this precious human life on the fleeting pleasures of some silver coins and the fragile beauty of the women? They must wait and go through many more births to learn to feel even the faintest necessity for anything higher. But those to whom the eternal interests of the soul are of much higher value than the fleeting interests of this mundane life, to whom the gratification of the senses is but like the thoughtless play of the baby; to them God and the love of God form the highest and the only utility of human existence. Thank God, there are some such still living in this world of too much worldliness!

“Can religion really accomplish anything? Yes, it can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is and will make of this human animal a God. That is what religion can do. Take away religion from human society and what will remain? Nothing but a herd of brutes. Sensual happiness is not the goal of humanity; wisdom and spiritual knowledge are the true goals of life.”

A perfect religion leads us to Him, who is the only life in this universe of death, Him, who is the changeless in this ever-changing world and who is the only soul of which all other souls are but delusive reflections. Him the sun does not illumine, not the moon, not the stars, not the lightening, nor verily fires kindled upon the earth. He is the one light that gives light to all. He shines; everything shines. – Katha Upanishad.

People in these days are apt to take up religion as means to some social or political end. Beware of this. Religion has an end of its own. A religion which is only a means to worldly well-being is not religion, whatever else it may be.

Primarily, religion is a value which is trans-social and inward. It takes hold of an individual when he has finished with values which are sensual and relative, and begins to crave for values which are transcendental and absolute. Spirituality or Godliness is an end in itself being the highest excellence, the consummation of freedom through the realization of truth.

The true purpose and function of religion is to make man truly civilized, cultured, chastened and refined.

If our selfishness, which motivates all our actions, is not refined and purified by ethical and human values, it will lead to unscrupulous activities for one’s own profit, pleasure and advancement, producing human devils in the form of human beings. The emotions of such human-species is triggered not by spiritual knowledge, as in case of man in the higher levels of his life, but by genetic mechanisms (as in case of ordinary levels of life) namely, physical satisfaction, physical survival and numerical increase.

Morality or ethical sense is the product of true religion, nay, it is religion itself.

Morality gives strength; the immoral are always weak. As immorality begins to enter the national life, its foundation commences to rot. So if we want that morality should prevail in the working of our society, then religion in its fullest sense must come into the individual life of its members.

Purity of character is the real life-breath for the greatness and glory of a nation.

Morality is the life of a nation. History shows that the first death-sign of a nation has been the spread of immorality; when that has entered, in the personal and social life of the nation, the death of that nation is inevitable.

“Religion makes us moral. Now we are not much more moral than the animals. We are only held down by the whip of society. If it is not there, we would just make a rush for each other’s property. It is the policeman that makes us moral; it is social opinion that makes us moral and we are of course little better than animals by our nature.”

The whole of India today is steeped in the Ganga of corruption and worship of immorality.

“Amoralists are half-hearted hypocrites. They are no good. They stand on both sides of the river.”

Since independence, our national morality has suffered an eclipse. There is an alarming lack of personal integrity and mutual-trust. Adulteration in foodstuffs and drugs, ticket less travelling, bribery and corruption, cheating each other and the state in various ways, all these have assumed ominous proportions to bring our social morality to a low ebb. The most sinister aspect of the situation is a widely prevalent mood of cynicism and scoffing at moral values and upright individuals. Cleverness has become life’s ideal and not moral integrity. But still there is an inkling everywhere for a keenly felt longing to raise the tone of nation’s morals and manners so as to recapture that vital spirituality of India’s hoary culture which has morality as its base and vision as its crest.

A crime-free state alone is a healthy state and that is the fruit of true religion. When woman, fully adorned with ornaments and unaccompanied by any escort, can move about freely and fearlessly in the streets, then that state can be called well-governed. It is not an utopia, we had it before and we can have it again. But at moment, under the influence of the crude materialistic philosophy of life by which people live today, it looks like a faraway dream, not only in India but everywhere. Alas! formerly citizens could move freely and the criminals were confined behind the bars in prison; but now the criminals move freely while the citizens are confined within the walls of their houses behind bolts and bars!

The ailments afflicting our nation today need a moral remedy. And in this, a right perception of religion can help us a lot. Though we are trying to eliminate physical diseases in our country and are successful to some extent but the greatest challenge to the nation at present comes from the malady which afflicts its mind and heart. Cynicism, self-centeredness, and utter unconcern for others are more deadlier than the most deadly physical diseases, when they lay their cold hands on a person, one is rendered incapable of responding to all higher values except skepticism and self-interest. They corrode the nation’s resolve to be free, to be united and to march onward and forward to progress.

Social evils are diseases of a social body; social reforms deal only with the symptoms and therefore, have a temporary effect. Lasting benefit to society comes from spirituality, which energizing from within makes for health and vigour without.

Today our society has reached a state of decay with increasing lust, greed, violence and self-centeredness divesting it of the virtues and graces for which it was known in the history of human races. We have lost all sense of discrimination in our single-minded pursuit of materialism. All our ethical self-restraints have vanished and everybody does whatever one likes leading to more and more of evil deeds and less and less of good deeds.

Do we want our children to live and work in such an unhealthy society? Though we are trying very hard to eliminate air, water and other environmental pollutions, yet we must work much harder to eliminate the more harmful mental pollutions in our country. This sort of commitment to raise the excellence level of human life, conduct and inter-human relationship is the responsibility of each one of us. This will make our country a great democracy; now our nation is big but not great.

“Three things are necessary to make every man or nation great:
f. Conviction of the powers of goodness.
g. Absence of jealousy and suspicion.
h. Helping all who are trying to be and do good.”

“At the moment a cloud of impenetrable darkness has engulfed our people. Now there is neither courage in heart nor strength of mind, neither aversion for maltreatments nor dislike for slavery, neither love in the heart nor hope or manliness; but what we have are only deep-rooted envy and strong antipathy for one another, a morbid desire to ruin by hook or by crook the weak and to lick dog-like the feet of the strong. Now the highest satisfaction lies in display of wealth and power, devotion in self-gratification, wisdom in accumulation of transitory objects, work in slavery of others, civilization in base imitation of foreigners, eloquence in use of abusive language and the merit of literature and arts in extravagant flattery of the rich and strong or in the diffusion of ghastly obscenities.”

The nation at present is infested and imbued in hypocrisy and ignorance. Stupidity is cloaked with a false cover of knowledge, laziness and incompetence presented in the garb of renunciation, cruelty as austerity of religion, where everybody is ready to lay the blame on others, knowledge is limited to reading of some books by heart, genius consists in chewing the cud of others thoughts – do you require any more proof of our degradation to utter Tamas?

In India today, the situation is same as that of at the time of Mahabharata i.e. the forces of righteousness have declined, people have become avaricious, lustful and indulgent in the objects of the senses and the higher values have disappeared from the society. Religion has degenerated in performing of a few rituals, charity in payment of money to priests, and no importance is given to good character, concern for others and to all noble and lofty principles.

There is a class which thinks that political or social changes are the only panacea for the evils of our nation. But there are others who think in a different way. They feel that no amount of political power or social changes or manipulation of human conditions can cure the evils of our social life – we have seen it now. It is an external appliance, which cannot by itself mould the ‘inner-man’! It is the change of heart to the better that alone can help. No amount of force or government or legislations of parliament can mould the minds of men on the lines of virtue. A government is after all a machine and a machine cannot change the behavioral pattern and character of the people. It is the true religion and ethical culture alone that can change wrong tendencies of the people for the better.

Man cannot be made virtuous by an act of parliament. Since our independence, we have depended too much on legislation and too little on education to change our men and society. Legislation, that aimed at and brought about far-reaching structural changes in our society, has left most of our people unchanged and even as a drag on our dynamic social situation!

Respect for law and constant efforts to uphold it on the part of the citizens and the holders of power are what make for human integration, strength and stability of a state, more particularly in a democratic setup. It is the awakened moral sense in a citizen that expresses itself as human values and makes the laws of the state effective. If the moral sense is absent, the laws become ineffective as the citizens twist the laws to suit their own advantage. This increases injustice in the society and weakens the political and social fabric. If the moral sense is not present, social contracts become ineffective, for it is the moral sense that motivates one to stick to a contract; without which he can and will flout it. Then such a social situation will develop where people will only take care that they are not caught by the law! In the words of Swami Vivekananda, ‘The basis of all systems, social and political, rests upon the goodness of men. No nation is great or good because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good. The goal is nation-building through man-making…………Religion goes to the root of the matter; if it is right all is right. One must admit that law, government, politics are all phases, not final in anyway. There is a goal beyond them where no law is needed. All great masters teach the same thing. According to them the basis is not law, but morality and purity are the only strengths.’

Law is death; the more the law in a country, the worse it is for the country. The more the law you make, more the policing you need for their proper implementation.

Purity and morality have always been the aims of religion because a pure moral man has control of himself. The man of strong character is a dynamo of power and can do anything and everything he likes. That is why purity and morality are treated as the cardinal principles of every religion. Swami Vivekananda says, “If a country is inhabited by people who are spiritual, moral and good, what police, what military, what law is necessary to govern them? So before flooding India with socialistic and political ideas, first deluge the land with spiritual ideas as the salvation of India depends on the strength of the individual and the realization and manifestation by each man of the divinity within.”

Religion leads to holiness and purity which are the greatest powers; everything else quails before them. In modern world, excess of knowledge and power without holiness, makes human beings devils.

No impure soul can be really religious; purity in thoughts, words and deeds is absolutely necessary for anyone to be religious. In other fields even a wicked man can make great discoveries but in the field of religion, no impure man can ever reach the truths of religion.

“Purity of soul is meditation and it is Yoga to achieve it. You can see God in the mirror of a pure and clean soul. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see the God.”

A spiritual person can never be violent or immoral because spiritualism is deep as an ocean; whoever dives deep into it, his character becomes great. The inspiration and guidance of such a philosophy of man will produce strong and peaceful people with great moral convictions through whose presence the society will become just.

The main cause of our present degeneration is our mistake of putting too much stress on political and economic factors ignoring altogether our spiritual nature, which alone restrains and ennobles the human mind and leads to perfect freedom and happiness.

We have the methods provided in our rich spiritual heritage by which ethical and spiritual values can be evoked in all human beings. True religion is very important for all human developments. Along with the steps we are taking to improve the economic strength and arouse the political awareness of our people, we should also take all necessary steps to raise their cultural level and increase their spiritual strength. By this alone, our people will achieve happiness and all-round fulfillment and become a source of strength to the nation. And there is no reason why with the available wisdom of the past, re -authenticated and re-enforced by the wisdom of the gigantic spiritual personalities of the modern times, we shall not be able to attain total human development in our country in the coming decades. If we have the ideal of total human development, the aim of enthroning man on the pedestal of his true dignity and glory as a child of immortality, we shall definitely become a great nation. All this is what we hope to do in the future. But we have to constantly keep this hope alive as it will give light to our minds, strength to our hearts and steadiness to our feet. This aspiration cannot find a better expression than in the following words of Swami Vivekananda: “Teach yourselves, teach everyone, his real nature; call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.”

The glorious vision of the inherent divinity of man and his capacity for limitless development bequeathed and re-authenticated by our philosophers and sages time and again, emphasizing on the inherent worth and dignity of man, has failed to become incorporated into the political and social consciousness of our people. Accordingly, the Indian body politic has been vitiated by social inequality and injustice to an amazing extent by every conceivable form of exploitation of the many by the few. This has reduced the status and stature of man in India to a deplorable extent. It has weakened the national life which has consequently become steeped in narrow attitudes, foolish superstitions and cheap and easy mysticism. Today, the vision of the universal and the human in our national heritage lies submerged in this muddy pool.

The tragedy of our social situation lies in our undoubtedly high and rich spiritual heritage finding very little expression in the character of our people, in their inter-personal behaviour.

Our nation today stands in sore need of a spiritual regeneration. There has been much talk of raising the economic standard of the people but very little about their moral standards. The nation is going along merrily with the idea that the index of national development is the increase in the national wealth. This led to an excessive love for money with its attendant evils namely, resort to easy ways of making money by corruption and all conceivable forms of malpractices, love of ease and neglect of human values.

When a society over-values money, it also devalues man. Feudal societies in the past and modern materialistic societies today, are one in committing this serious blunder. In our money-centered society of today, we find both the poor and well-to-do tending to increasingly become bereft of the sense of honour and self-respect, exhibiting meanness in inter-human relations, and thus eroding the cement of mutual trust that integrates man with man in a society. This is the difference that the presence and absence of the nourishment and stimulus of pure religion make in the human situation.

“Along with trying to increase the per-capita income and consumption of material things, we must also try to increase per-capita production and consumption of spiritual energy. Swami Vivekananda wanted India to retain its historically acquired hold on this unique science of generation and consumption of spirituality and to share it with the rest of humanity, while learning from advanced nations the know-how of physical sciences and technology. He wanted India to achieve a happy synthesis of physical sciences and the science of man with a view to enrich man externally and internally, materially and spiritually”.

Through the message of Vedanta, even the poorest will capture a sense of human dignity, a sense of human worth, which nobody can alienate, sell or purchase. If money becomes the central criterion of human values, then the poor shall always be striving to get more money, shall be always either cowering before the rich, or seeking opportunities to rob them individually or rise in revolt collectively; and the rich shall always be looking down upon the poor, or protecting themselves with counter revolutionary measures.

A free, self-regulating, egalitarian and peaceful society will emerge only when a little ethical and spiritual value will spontaneously rise from the depth of the human spirit and irrigate man’s personal and social life.

Spiritual realization which is the birth right of every man will galvanize the moral and spiritual life of all beings. If we are to build our nation on enduring foundations, we have to build on spirituality and not merely on economic amelioration programmes. This is according to Vivekananda, nation-building through man-making. Unfortunately, since our independence, we neglected man in ourselves and concentrated more on external conditions of human life. That is why we are in such a mess today.

Religion leads to the growth of spiritual dimension of a human being which removes the sense of inner-poverty and unfulfilment in him.

Spirituality is the universal core of religion and its realization takes one beyond the ethnic and parochial aspects of religion. It is the struggle to realize life’s deeper values which religion names as God or Perfection.

Character-efficiency and work-efficiency are the wonderful fruits of the science of religion.

Is this world of sensual enjoyments real? Religion begins with this question and ends with its answer.

Religion prevents reversion of man to the animal. It makes us aware of the divine in our soul and in the souls of others, irrespective of caste, creed, nationality or sex. The God of India is the God seated in the hearts of all beings, as taught by India’s eternal philosophy, the Vedanta.

“Some of our people, especially among our educated class and elites run after all sorts of magic and miracles, puerile and sterile in the name of religion and yoga. In this age of marvels of science, such things appear infantile. The only miracles that can match and over-match such miracles of physical science are the miracles of purity, love, compassion, character-efficiency and service – the miracles as remarked by Gandhiji, ‘of transmuting hatred into love and violence into non-violence in collective human relationship’ – which are all the sweet fruits of man’s spiritual growth. This is the product of religion as a science, verified and verifiable, open and communicable, similar to the truths of physical science.”

It will be the dawn of a great and glorious era in India, when our people will turn away from all cheap and flimsy, magical, misty and secret ideas of religion and begin to understand and practice religion as the science of the spiritual growth of man, yielding strength of character, clarity of thoughts and love and service.

Religion is dynamic spirituality and not static-piety. Religion means spiritual growth and not mere indulgence in dogmas and rituals or cheap magic and miracles. The true miracle is the miracle of character; it is greater than even the greatest miracles of modern physical science in the fields of space technology, agriculture, medicine and surgery. The challenge before all religions at all times have been, that can they produce character-energy in the genetically limited householders?

The word Dharma was never used to mean a dogma or creed or ethnical religion; we are making this mistake only in the modern period. Sri Krishna defines ‘Dharma’ as the value that holds the people together in a society, which integrates man with man. At another place it is said that only that person understands Dharma who is always the friend of all beings and who does what is good for all, through thoughts, words and deeds. The emphasis is on being friendly and doing good to all beings and not just to the members of one’s own family, caste or community. Dharma thus cuts across all caste and creed distinctions and limitations. It is an universal value and no human society can exist without it, though a society can exist without ethnical religion.

Religion is the highest plane of human thought and life. It has to play a vital, progressive and dynamic role. It has played its part in the past but has a much bigger role to play in the present and future. It has to raise humanity to a higher ethical plane.

Violence and hatred are the two dominant forces in today’s world. The purpose and task of religion is to tame and subdue these forces in man and make for higher expression of his inherent energies and impulses.

Impulses by themselves are neither good nor bad. They become one or the other in the way we use them. We can learn to tame and use them for good and creative work by science of religion. It can help us to control the libido and raise them (our impulses) to the highest level of inspiration. Only the man who has controlled all his passions and impulses is truly religious. He becomes pure and holy. He has gained real education at its highest and best. He not only raises himself to a higher ethical and spiritual plane, but he raises others as well.

Religion begins with disgust and dissatisfaction with our existing state; with our lives of hatred, fraud and lies. All religions constantly emphasize the need for self-control, self-restraint and self-surrender. All genuine religions teach us to practice love and abjure hate and to restrain the waywardness of the senses and the whims of the mind.

‘There are in the world two powers – the spiritual and the sword, and the spirit has always vanquished the sword. Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded great empires but on what did creations of our genius depend? On force. Jesus alone founded his empire on love, and to this very day millions would die for him!’- says Napoleon.

By luck or force a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love and kindness he may rule the world forever.

It is hopeless and perfectly useless to attempt to govern mankind with the sword. We will find that the very centres from which such ideas as government by force sprang up are the very first centres to degrade and degenerate and crumble to pieces.

Weapon of innocent love is most deadly; you can kill anybody with it.

“Religion does not want the cohorts to march before its path and clear its way. Wisdom and philosophy do not want to be carried on the floods of blood, upon bleeding human bodies, but come on the wings of peace and love.”

Religious realization will be of immense good to the world as there will be a reign of peace in place of fighting and quarrelling. The indecent and brutal hurry, which prods us to go ahead of everyone else, will then vanish from the world. With it will vanish all quarrels, hatred, jealousy and all other evils forever. They will all vanish and the great ideal of love will become so powerful that no whip and cord will be necessary to guide mankind aright.

The modern idea, on one hand, with the “learned” is that religion and metaphysics and all search after the Supreme Being are futile; on the other hand, with the semi-educated, the idea seems to be that these things really have no basis, their only value consists in the fact that they furnish strong motive power for doing good to the world; if a man believes in God, he may become good and moral, and hence would make a good citizen.

Religious realization does all the good to the world. People, particularly the rich, are afraid that when they attain to it, when they realize that there is but one, the fountains of love will be dried up, that everything in life will go away, and that all they love will vanish for them in this life and in the life to come. People never stop to think that those who have bestowed the least thought to their own individualities have been the greatest workers in the world. Then alone a man loves when he finds that the object of his love is not any low, little, mortal thing, not a clod of earth, but is the veritable God Himself.

For other lands, living in luxurious homes surrounded with all the material comforts of life and practicing a little amateur religion may be good, but India has a genuine instinct. It intuitively detects the mask.

In most countries of the world reflection on the nature of Self is a luxury of life. The serious moments are given to work while the pursuit of religion or spirituality comes up as an interlude. However, in India, this philosophy has never been an ancillary to any other science or art but has held a prominent position all the time. It stood on its own strength and all other studies always looked up to it for inspiration and support. It had always been treated as the master science leading to eternal knowledge without the guidance of which all other sciences tend to become empty and foolish.

To most people, religion is one of the many occupations of life. There is politics, there are the enjoyments of social and material life and many other things which wealth can buy, power can bring and senses can enjoy; and among all these various occupations of life and pursuits of material objects, which can give a little more whetting to the cloyed senses – there is perhaps a little bit of religion. But in case of India, religion is the one and the only occupation of life.

Religion is a necessary thing to a very few; to most of us it is luxury. Though we fight and talk about religion, yet we do not truly want it, never try to realize it. This is not religion which we see around us. It is just something as all other things of enjoyment. It is just a little flavour in the life of sensual enjoyments, just a pretension. Until the human heart, which is covered with the dust and dirt of ages, impurities, wickedness and sins, becomes purified by doing good deeds and loving other beings, we cannot have even a speck of true religion.

Now-a-days, religion has become a mere hobby and fashion. People go to the places of worship like a herd of sheep. They do not do so to find or embrace God but just not to be found lagging behind others in their show of religiosity. Most of them are unconscious atheists who self-complacently think that they are devout believers. In religion now-a-days, we either practice hypocrisy or fanaticism, where the most diabolical try to disguise their misdeeds, under the cloak of austerity, as a part of religion. For centuries, we were self-centred; we prayed for self-salvation to God without least thought of what will happen to others. In our temples, we struggle to have ‘darshan’ first, elbowing out others. And the more pious the person is, the more he does this elbowing, claiming to be closest to God. If one is really close to God, he will place himself last. This is dynamic spirituality whereas the other is only a petty piety-fringed worldliness, miscalled religion.

The majority of us work just like robots with no thought of God and feeling no need for Him. Our talking about God and spirit is good; but it is simply in vogue in our society to talk like that; we have learnt it parrot-like and repeat it. We continue to behave like this till the final call comes when we have to go empty handed leaving everything behind as it is. However the show goes on.

Religion today is more outward ostentation and fussiness than spiritual enrichment. It is like rowing a boat without lifting the anchors.

Religion today has become lifeless mockery, a means to hide behind the outward piety a good deal of selfishness, social-callousness and violence. It has come down to nothing more than a piety- fringed worldliness.

Religion has become for many of us, merely a little charitable work, just to amuse us after a hard days labour. Now what is generally called charity is nothing but the expression of the pride of one’s heart. Charity belies its name so long as it is given to gain reputation or applause of the world or out of pity or compassion. It must be given out of love.

He who does charity in secrecy is the greatest.

Barring a minority of people who are truly enlightened in their charity, the majority are not. It is done more to earn pious merit for oneself than to remove the sufferings of the person in front; often it is unwilling and forced charity, mostly given without grace, understanding and freedom of spirit, as if one rich slave is tossing some coins to another poor slave! Our rich have to realize that spending is the dynamics of economics and that wise spending is more difficult and important than earning. If someone gets a real chance for charity, one must consider it his privilege to have that opportunity for the flow of one’s excess wealth when others have it not.

Today love, peace, charity, equality and universal brotherhood have become mere words without any meaning. We just repeat them parrot-like. The great souls, who felt these great ideas in their hearts for the first time, evolved these words and at that time many also understood their meaning. But later on ignorant people have taken up these words to play with them and made religion a mere play on words and not a thing to be carried out into practice.

We have started loving words and not their meaning. We believe that a word is for knowledge and not for action. Treat actions as wisdom and not words.

In every society there is a section, whose pleasure is not in the senses but beyond and who strives to reach it. And if we read the history of nations between the lines, we shall always find that the rise of a nation comes with an increase in the number of such men; and the fall begins when this pursuit after the infinite, however vain the utilitarians may call it, has stopped. The mainspring of the strength of every nation lies in its spirituality, and the death of that nation begins when that spirituality wanes and materialism gains ground.

Civilisations and states have tumbled down when they have lost their spiritual and ethical moorings. The past history of the world is a warning to us. Modern civilisation, if it has to survive must derive sustenance from religion and spirituality.

“True civilasation does not mean congregating in the cities and living a foolish life, but going God-ward, controlling the senses and thus becoming the ruler in the ‘House of Self.’ No civilisation will last unless it is based on religion, on the goodness of man.”

The one prominent affliction of man in our modern scientific civilization is anxiety which is a form of fear. This affliction comes not from external nature, over which modern man has near total control, but from that mysterious inner-nature of man about which he and his physical science knows nothing. This affliction is most predominant in those societies which are highly developed in science and technology. The tragedy of modern civilization lies in the fact that though the sciences of physical nature have advanced far, the science of human nature has tarried far behind.

The tendency to bring everything to the level of machines has given the West its wonderful prosperity, and it is this which has driven away all religion from its doors.

From a long time Indian thought has insistently proclaimed that the man of senses is the focus of tension, strife and sorrow. Intellectual knowledge without complementary spiritual knowledge only sharpens his animal appetites and deepens his inner tensions. A civilization, which knows man only as a sensual individual and sharpens his animal desires and panders to their satisfaction, is an unstable structure built on sand and is bound to topple over sooner or later from its inner-tensions and contradictions. According to Swami Vivekananda, “the whole of Western civilisation will crumble to pieces in the next fifty years if no attempts are made to give it a spiritual foundation. Europe, the centre of manifestation of material energy, will crumble into dust within fifty years, if it is not mindful to change its position, to shift its ground and make spirituality the basis of its life.”

“Race after race has tried to solve the riddle of the world on the plane of desires. They have all failed in the past – the old ones have become extinct under the weight of wickedness and misery, which the lust of power and gold brings in its train and the new ones are tottering to their fall. The question has yet to be decided whether peace will survive or war, whether patience will survive or non-forbearance; whether goodness will survive or wickedness; whether muscle will survive or brain; whether worldliness will survive or spirituality. We have solved our problems ages ago, and held on to it through good or evil fortune, and mean to hold on to it till the end of time. Our solution is spirituality, un-worldliness, renunciation.”

“So if anyone preaches in India the ideal of eating, drinking and making merry, if any one wants to apotheosize the material world into a God, then that man is a liar; he has no place in this holy land, the Indian mind does not want to listen to him.”

Maladies are present everywhere, even affluence may be a malady in the long run. We must take the warning from the bitter experiences of the advanced nations of the modern world, that serious psychic and social distortions, such as proliferation in drug and drink addictions and increase in acts of crime and sex perversions are inevitable, which will turn all human developments into human tragedies, if man is deprived of the spiritual nourishment coming from true religion, coming from the depths of human soul, the divine spark inherent in every one. Why these nations are rocked by such problems – nations considered highly developed economically, educationally and politically? The reason is that their spiritual development has not accompanied their material development.

As crime, sex, drugs and other evils are increasing in the socio-political structure of every country today, a re-assessment of human values and philosophy by which modern man lives has become imperative. A mere tinkering with these structures will not help to solve the problems of the day.

In order to bring about real security and peace in our society, we need to live by a philosophy of life different from the one by which humanity lives in modern age. We will have to realize that shining nature of man, the Atman, behind his body. When man really identifies himself with the One, the Atman, everything is possible for him as all matters become his servant, and he can no more be contaminated by any vice.

‘Man may try through his technical advancement to roll up the sky itself as if it were a piece of leather; but with all that, he will never succeed in achieving peace and the end of his sorrows without realising the luminous Divine within himself’ – (Svetasvatrara Upanishad)

If we deprive our people from their historically acquired spiritual culture in the name of human development, we will convert our nation into a mess of human problems. With more physical and intellectual energy made available through nourishing food and education but not refined through spiritual catalysis, we can expect only more tension and violence in our society, requiring more governance, more laws and more loss of true freedom.

No doubt, materialism has its due importance in the evolution and progress of human society; but when it over dominates the minds and hearts of men, it betokens danger. Today devoid of ethical and spiritual foundations, it has become a menace to humanity where animality prevails over the divinity in man.

The selfish people, the mean people, those who exploit and cheat others and think themselves clever and successful, they can never feel the touch of Atman within them. And if man, endowed with a versatile cerebral system, considers himself successful by mistaking cleverness and crookedness as intelligence, there is only a dismal future for mankind. Swami Vivekananda has aptly said that, ‘when we were in a primitive state of culture we killed and ate each other, but now that we are in an educated and civilised state, we do not eat each other, but we cheat each other!’ All this eating and cheating will continue as long as we live at our organic level alone seeking only sensual satisfactions and continue to use the blessings of science and technology only to that end.

If material development is not balanced by spiritual growth, we shall get only clever-crooks, selfish and worldly, who will convert our land into a vortex of inter-personal and inter-group tensions.

Today, Western philosophy of materialism is posing a big challenge not only to us but to the whole of humanity. Of course, we have our problems and many social maladies – enormous poverty, backwardness, human suffering etc. but along with it we have also a profound spiritual heritage to fall back upon.

Today, human maladies prevailing in our nation are serious and widespread. With pettiness and meanness all around us and evils like poverty, exploitation, violence and crime posing a menace to our society, the situation is grim and murky. We find that all our plans have gone disarray. The old institutions and systems are crumbling to dust, all our hopes are getting blighted, and everything seems to be out of joint. But when rational and sensible remedies are available, which are universally applicable, there comes the sense of hope and expectancy.

Religion is the universal code of right conduct which kindles the common inner-bond and restrains selfishness; each man living and working for the whole. It keeps the people together even without any external authority.

Indian philosophy considers ‘Kama’ (sensate satisfaction) and ‘Artha’ (wealth) the means to Kama, as valid human pursuits. But it considers ‘Lobha’ (greed) and ‘Moha’ (delusion) arising from unchecked desires as unethical because they incline to work against social-interests. To restrain these two pursuits from becoming anti-social, Indian philosophy presents a third vital human pursuit namely, ‘Dharma’ (ethical sense). It is Dharma that helps all people, not just a few powerful and clever ones, to have the opportunity of experiencing maximum sensual satisfaction by acquisition of wealth and other material objects through right actions. Even Shri Krishna, the human manifestation of the Divine Self in all beings, endorses this validity of Kama in the Gita. He says, “I am that Kama (sensual desire) in all beings, which is not opposed to Dharma”. But this pursuit of satisfaction of desires and earning of money should be disciplined and regulated by an ethical sense, so that all persons in a society may get the opportunity to satisfy their urge for them.

Only if the river of all the human activities, social, political and economic flows between the two banks of religion (Dharma) and freedom (Moksha), it will be conducive to the happiness of both individual and the society. Whatever is possible between these two bounds could be enjoyed by one and all. It is only this arrangement which can harmonise and balance happiness and peace in the society.

As a lamp dispels darkness by shedding light, in the same way Dharma repels difficulties and destitutions by illumining our minds and hearts. Therefore, it is only through the practice of Dharma that difficulties can be overridden and true happiness can be attained.

In normal life, we have the alternatives of joys and sorrows; but after spiritual realisation, it is infinite bliss, and this is the birthright of everyone.

If we have to elevate man out of his present stunted and ineffective state and put him on the road to growth, expansion, creativity and fulfillment then spirituality is the only ideology which can restore to him his dignity and strength and integrate man to man to form the continuous guarantee of the freedom of the individual and progress of the nation.

Even minimal of spiritual growth will enable every citizen to take care of the national interests while protecting one’s own personal interests. Besides economic advancement it will confer honour, dignity and a spirit of heroic adventure.

Today, in absence of that spirituality men in India indulge in indiscriminate exploitation of every conceivable kind; the strong and powerful exploiting the weak and the helpless, the learned exploiting the ignorant, men exploiting women and women also, alas! strangely exploiting the women. The way out is to lead a self-restrained, balanced and harmonious life, i.e. an arrangement of duties and obligations, both on the plane of individual and society, which will conduce to the well-being of all with regulation of the economic and political aspects of life by rules based on infinite and eternal knowledge and lived experiences.

As in our personal life, just so in the national life; when the national body is weak then all sorts of diseased germs in its political state or social state, in its educational or intellectual state, crowd into the system and produce diseases. In order to cure it we must go to the root of the disease and cleanse the blood of all impurities.

If the lifeblood is strong and pure, no diseased germ can live in the body. Our lifeblood is spirituality. If it flows clearly and vigorously every thing will be all right; all its socio-political and economic problems will be resolved, even the poverty of the land will be removed.

The stirring of the inherent spiritual dimension will expresses itself in a new and vast energy resource, out of which will flow compassion, love, service, dedication and self- restraint, the strength to check the impulse to fatten oneself at the cost of others. This is an energy resource which the whole world needs today in order to evolve a healthy and humanised social order free from distress and exploitation. Why there is a steady upswing in crime graph of society today? It is because the body has become strong, the intellect has become sharp but the moral sense, which does not flow from the text-books of religion or political authority, has not developed accordingly. It proceeds from man’s spiritual growth and is its by-product.

India has experienced stormy periods in its long history and she has responded successfully to all such challenges on the strength of her tenacious loyalty to the fundamental spiritual values, which she consequently placed at the foundation of her national culture. It is this faith in spiritual values, that has been tested in good and evil fortune, which is being challenged and threatened by the most powerful storm of modern transition. All the previous challenges were mild in comparison, being only fractional, whereas this one is total. The invasion of the West has left a subtle influence on our people. Though India had also seen conquests and invasions before that but they passed off leaving our national ideals unaffected. The invaders in a short time got assimilated in our body-politic. In comparison to earlier invasions, this one from the West though mild has left a deep impression of the Western culture on the mind of India in a variety of ways. In the wake of the new education system introduced by Macaulay, imitation of the West began to spread and very soon our old culture ceased to have enough hold on the minds of our educated generation. The old heritage of India began to be assailed from many directions and the spread of the materialistic philosophy weakened the hold of our religion on our youths. Is not there something in our age old heritage which has the vitality to welcome these new forces – the intellectual force of science and the social force of democracy – and assimilate their values into the national heritage, so that it may emerge stronger and richer than before?

The integrated philosophy of Vedanta, can help us here to maintain our national life on an even keel by its theory of twofold dharmas, namely, outward-directed action and inward-directed meditation as the means of social welfare and spiritual growth and fulfillment of all beings. It will certainly help in the development of the human values which will make us physically strong and healthy, mentally alert and sensitive and spiritually united.

“Vedanta equips us with the steadier wisdom which will stand us in all circumstances of life. It will provide us with that wisdom which is itself steady and which helps to steady our feet on the slippery path of our lives. We want its guidance to steer the barks of our lives through the tempest of circumstances.”

When the philosophy of Vedanta becomes universally known and applied, it can be more helpful for the future of mankind. Whatever may be our current problems, however dismal the situation may look like, we may assure ourselves that this is only a passing phase. There is enough wisdom and inspiration available with us which can take humanity on the road of social well-being and spiritual growth.

The edifice of our socio-political life needs to be founded on the bedrock of social health and social well-being. That work calls for people imbued not only with political passions and personal ambitions but also with spiritual enthusiasm, moral fervour and a thorough knowledge of science of man and society. Only an edifice so built can withstand the stress and strain of the modern world. To do so, we shall have to think and act dispassionately. Today, when we are called upon to this task after centuries of national immobilization, let us proceed calmly and patiently to build the structure and edifice of our free society on enduring foundations. This will happen only if we can tap the resources of inspiration proceeding from religion and join to it the other inspiration proceeding from science.

The philosophy of Vedanta seeks to lift man out of the stunted ineffective state and put him on the road to growth, expansion, creativity and fulfillment. Renunciation and service are the two watchwords of this philosophy. It is the renunciation of the puny ego, centred in the organic system and manifestation of the Atman, the infinite Self (which is the self of all) and service of all that is the channel which helps this manifestation. This is the ideology that will restore to man his dignity and strength and integrate man to man, to form the continued guarantee of the freedom of the individual and the unity and progress of the nation.

Indian philosophy enshrines the wisdom of reconciliation in tradition and change. It is the resilience, adaptability and assimilative power that enables an organism to live and thrive. Their presence indicates youthfulness, their dimunition onset of old age, to end eventually and invariably in death. But India has been ever living, never aging. The only conclusion to be drawn from this fact is that somewhere in the depth of her culture, lies the reason of this undying youthful vitality, making for fresh outbursts of adaptations and assimilations in times of crisis. So the history in case of India, becomes a series of rejuvenations, developments and decays, but never the final death. This youthful vitality of India has its origin in her spiritual thoughts and social philosophy. The Upanisads are the source of her spiritual and philosophical thoughts, of which the fundamental ideas are – the divinity of man, the basic solidarity of all existence, realisation and not mere belief or creed as religion and the harmony of all religions. They gave rise to the values of tolerance, peace, gentleness and non-aggressiveness, which became distinctive features of our culture and traditions, finding expression both in individual behaviour and state policy. It bonded together all religions and saved us from spiritual snobbery.

“The culture of the modern west, which came to India in the wake of British subjection and through the English language, represented the spirit of manliness and socio-political strength arising from scientific and technical advancement. The contact of such a powerful culture could have easily spelt death to a decadent culture; some contemporary western thinkers had predicted it and some others had even hoped for it; but exactly the opposite has happened. Instead of dying, India burst into a renaissance of her ageless spirit. This was because there was a close kinship between the inner core of these two legacies which Indian renaissance has made explicit in Swami Vivekananda. This renaissance was sponsored and nourished in the early nineteenth century by the great Raja Ram Mohan Roy who strove to inject the modern progressive spirit into this nation and who represented in himself a fine synthesis of East and West.”

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, this renaissance found its most authentic voice in two great personalities, Shri Ramkrishna and Swami Vivekananda. Shri Ramkrishna represented the undying spirit of India; her deep spirituality, broad human sympathies, universal toleration, love and concern for man; and in his great disciple, Vivekananda, this rediscovery became blended with the spirit of modern age. In them, the renaissance movement which has proceeded haltingly during the preceding seven decades became a powerful flood, destined to suffuse all aspects of human life not only in India but elsewhere also. Dealing with Vivekananda, Nehru says in his discovery of India: ‘Rooted in the past and full of pride of India’s heritage, Vivekananda was yet modern in his approach to the problems of life and was a kind of a bridge between the past of India and her present. If you read Swami Vivekananda’s writings and speeches, the curious thing you will find that they are not old. It was told fifty six years ago (i.e. now more than hundred) but they are still relevant today, because what he wrote or spoke about, dealt with certain fundamental matters and aspects of our problems or the world’s problems. Therefore, they do not become old. They are fresh even though you read them now. Wherever he went, he created a minor sensation not only by his presence, but by what he said and how he said it. He wanted to combine western progress with the Indian spiritual background.’ He said “Make an European society with India’s religion. Become an occidental of occidentals in your spirit of equality, freedom, work and energy, and at the same time a Hindu to the very backbone in religious culture and instincts. Vivekananda spoke of many things, but the one constant refrain of his speech and writing was ‘abhay’ – be fearless and be strong”.

Modern age in India is the link between her grand and age-old past and her endless future.

A new India is to be the perfect synthesis of the past and present, of east and west.

‘He was no politician in the ordinary sense of the word and yet he was, I think one of the greatest founders – if you like, you may use any other word – of the modern national movement of India; and a great number of people who took more or less an active part in that movement in a later date, drew their inspiration from Swami Vivekananda. Directly he has powerfully influenced the India of today; and I hope that our younger generations will take advantage of the fountain of wisdom, of spirit and fire, that flows through Swami Vivekananda as every breath he took pulsed with the thought of good of India, the happiness of India’.

Our people were inspired by his life and fiery words, woke up from the sleep of centuries and struggled to cast off weakening superstitions and anti-human practices like casteism and untouchability and finally achieved political freedom, throwing up great leaders and movements in the process. He will now teach us to use that freedom to rescue millions of our fellow-countrymen from grinding poverty, centuries-long neglect, oppression and ignorance, and restore to them the sense of individual worth and dignity. This is what he termed ‘man-making and nation-building’.

“If you want to understand India, study Vivekananda. In him every thing is positive and nothing negative” – Tagore to Romain Rolland.

The aim and end of human life is not money, power or position nor name or fame but to realize its innate divinity, the reality, which will lead to everlasting bliss and ultimate freedom.

The whole scope of religion is to prevent man from falling into bondage of the senses and to help him to assert his divinity and freedom. Religion leads man on that path.

“Religion is a torch to set the soul on fire with a longing for spiritual realization in absence of which the belief of the faithful is not much different from the unbelief of the faithless.”

Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man. It is hidden, religion helps to manifest it. It is not paying money to a priest or reciting of any mantra or going to any temple. Mere scholarship is not the goal of religion; it is spirituality. What you perceive in soul is realization.

Religion is the greatest motive power that moves the human mind for realizing that infinite energy which is his natural birth right. The one great idea in every country and in all religions is that man is divine by nature and it has to be called out to manifest itself. The old people knew that the fire lived in the flint but friction was necessary to call it out. So this fire of freedom and purity is the nature of every soul, and not a quality, because quality can be acquired and therefore can be lost.

Buddha was endowed with infinite compassion and the spirit of service, not because of the food he ate or the socio-political circumstances at that period of time, but he just manifested the inborn perfection of his nature which is the birth right of every human being.

“Swami Vivekanda, therefore, defines religion as the manifestation of the divinity already in man. That profound dimension is there in you and in me, it is lying hidden, it is lying mixed up with our organic dimensions. But man has and he alone has, among all species, the requisite organic capacity to disengage the spiritual dimension from its organic tie-up and manifest it freely in his life and character. That is religion as the lived experience and not as a creed or dogma. An ethical awareness, human concern and the mood and act of service become by-products of this spiritual growth. This is the moral and ethical spontaneity and naturalness relevant to man; unlike the physical and sense-bound spontaneity and naturalness relevant to all other species in the pre-human stage of evolution.”

“Swami Ramkrishna compared this hidden truth of God in all of us to the fire hidden in a match-stick. The ignorant man protests against this teaching, saying he is not able to find any God within him or without. This is exactly what a child will say with respect to the presence of fire in a match-stick. Like fire in a match-stick, according to Upanisads, there is an Atma in every one, but it is hidden, not manifest to our senses. Strike the match-stick and the fire, ever present in it, comes out. Similarly the whole process of education, secular or spiritual, is to strike the fire of knowledge ever present in us. But the match-stick should be dry and not wet to achieve a successful demonstration of this truth, otherwise we will only waste the match-stick without verifying the truth. However, it will not mean that there is no fire in the match-stick but only that certain necessary conditions were not satisfied. Similarly, the light and fire of the ever-present Atman within man cannot be ignited unless certain conditions are satisfied. All these conditions are unified in one single value namely, purity of heart.”

“What is this striking with respect to man? It is man’s interactions with nature and society on the one hand, and among the forces within man himself on the other. Efficient handling of these, under the guidance of an appropriate philosophy of life, makes for strength, character-efficiency, steady spiritual growth and fulfillment; inefficient handling results in a distorted psyche and a deficient character, but without any guiding philosophy, it makes for stagnation at the sensory level”.

“Like the wet match-stick, even the impure unethical individual has also the ever pure infinite Atman, as the soul of his soul, but it is hidden, not manifest.”

“I am purer than others” is the most awful idea that can ever enter the human heart. In what sense you are pure? The God in you is the God in all.

The main cause of all our bondage is our ignorance of our own nature. Man is not at all wicked by his own nature. His nature is pure, perfectly holy. Each man is divine and God by nature. This nature is covered with ignorance and it is this ignorance that binds us down. Ignorance is the cause of all our miseries, all wickedness.

Religion is the manifestation of the natural strength that is in all of us. Every thing that is strong, good and powerful in human nature is the result of that divinity. Potentially each one of us has as his real nature, that infinite ocean of existence, knowledge and bliss as his birthright. The difference is not of kind but of degree, of knowing or not knowing it.

Spirituality has a unifying power. It is the tie that unites humanity. Of all the forces that have worked and are still working to mould the destinies of human race, none certainly is more potent than religion. It is the cornerstone, the greatest cohesive impulse in the working of all societies, the cementing force of all civilizations at all times. It is obvious to all of us that in the very many cases the bonds of religion have proved much stronger and durable than the bonds of race and descent.

“ In Europe, political ideas form national unity; in Asia, religious ideals form the national unity.”

Like cement, which holds together separate bricks and helps to make the integrated structure of a building, similarly ethical and spiritual values help to hold together separate individuals in a society which then ceases to be a mere herd of separate individuals like the building which ceases to be just a pile of separate bricks.

A mere aggregation of individuals does not make a society, just as a mere accumulation of bricks does not constitute a building. A polity is held together by the spiritual values or ethical sense. The genetic bond becomes totally ineffective for the integration of humanity in the large human conglomerations on the level of national and multi-national states. The strength of these modern states proceeds from their human integration; and this integration is essentially a product of the general political education of their population in ethical sense and human concern.

The function of religion is to actualise the spiritual oneness of humanity by reducing and obliterating the distance between man and man.

Spirituality believes in oneness and sameness of all souls, and these are the rationale behind all ethics and spiritual thinking.

Religion helps us to control our minds and adjust it to a harmonious social living for a peaceful co-existence of people in the society. It helps us to realize the inherent divinity even while enjoying a normal worldly life. The power that brings individuals together and sustains them as society is religion. It helps to realize the oneness with others in society and imbues us with the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-surrender.

Religion helps in spiritual growth and building up of character. Ethical values or dharma, are inseparable from any ordered human society. Bereft of them, man becomes reduced to a beast, says Indian wisdom. Dharma, as the principle of integration of man with man in society, does not mean religion in the sense of creed, doctrine or rituals or any scheme of other-worldly salvation but stresses the idea of mutuality and inter-dependence of the members in the society.

Religion leads to spiritual growth; the manifestation of divinity in man. Modern science and modern thought can only lead to physical and intellectual growth. By spiritual growth, one sees the world and also one’s own life in a new light and establishes a healthy and happy inter-human relationship.

Some of our people are under the impression that the subject of inter-human relationship is secular and hence non-religious or non-spiritual. “But I am here to tell you that it is not only just secular but also deeply spiritual. When we properly understand the word spiritual in the light of our philosophy of Vedanta, we shall realize that the enlightened-citizenship is part and parcel of total spiritual development and fulfillment of man and that the secular stage, though essential and inescapable, is only the stepping stone of that spiritual development. If we study the Gita carefully this truth will dawn upon us. When we understand religion as spiritual growth, and not just something tied up with some rituals for gaining a receipt to a post-mortem heaven, then we shall also grasp the truth that religion forms an important constituent of that human growth.

No body can be truly atheist according to Advaita, because when you deny God you are denying something external, a concept. You cannot deny your own self as you are He. So, there can be no real atheist, except one who lives at the organic level, ignoring one’s own higher dimension.

Spiritualism will destroy all allergies, shyness and delusion of our people, particularly of our educated class, towards religion. It will diminish atheism because its teaching is not about a God sitting in the sky or about salvation after death but it is about human beings, manifesting the divinity already in them.

Today, there is a sense of revulsion against religion, when viewed against modern science with its love for truth and spirit of free inquiry. The growth of agnosticism and atheism is not because people do not want spirituality but because they do not know what it is, and what they currently see as religion holds no spiritual appeal to them. Seeing the dogmatic and irrational portrayal of religion and experiencing persecution caused by it, modern science in the west condemned all religions as primitive superstitions. Society there also followed suit. Religious scholarship is only knowledge about religion; but religion is experience, it is spiritual growth, development and realization. Rituals and ceremonies or set of do’s and don’ts are not the whole of religion. True religion is a science like any other science and not an ethnic piety. It is a science of man’s spiritual growth and fulfillment, the unfoldment of divinity already in man.

“Today, if there is a dislike for religion, if there is forsaking of religion on the part of our youth, it is only because the older people, who are very religious, do not impress the young people with any improvement in their character, in spite of all their religion. So religion becomes a thing of contempt, when it does not seem or is seen to produce even the slightest spiritual growth in the people who swear by it.”

Every religion has two dimensions, namely ethnical and the scientific. The ethnical is what you are born into, and you have no say in the matter. It does not ensure that you have grown spiritually. That is why in all the ethnically limited religions, one may be religious and wicked at the same time. It is this situation that has brought all religions into contempt in the modern times. But every religion has also a higher dimension namely a scientific or spiritual dimension. It is a science like any other science because it emphasizes the idea of seeking spiritual growth.

Our aspiration and stress in the past has been on attaining self-salvation, and it has been pursued very energetically by our people as a post-mortem excellence; with an attitude that whatever we shall gain, we shall gain only after death. This has become our generally practised philosophy.

Therefore, we have become almost wedded to the idea that religion is a sublime theory which can be brought into practice and made tangible only in another life, but Swamiji shows us the fallacy of this postulation. In preaching the Divinity of man he inculcates a spirit of strength into us.

We are under the wrong impression that enlightenment, spiritual growth and divine experience, all these are meant only for saints or ascetics who renounce the worldly life and go to the forest, and the householders have to remain as worldly individuals, ignorant of their higher possibilities and be content with some static-piety of rituals or ceremonies as their religion in this life and some heaven after death. No, says the Gita; spiritual life is for all. The inherent Divinity is the birth right of all and its experience and realization is to be attained in this very life. Death alone cannot free us. Freedom must be attained by our own efforts during this very life; then, when the body falls, there will be no rebirth for it.

Owing to our lives being fragile and uncertain, one should be devoted to religion even in one’s youth; for who knows when the body may fall off.

If religion only means going to some heaven after death, there is no harm in waiting till old age to pursue religion; but if it means the science of spirituality, the technique of gaining strength, fearlessness and love in this very life, it is worth pursuing from very early life.

Our idea of religion is of something that should be sought in the later part of our lives, even at our death-bed. At that time we seek from religion only a ticket to the heaven! We have yet to understand the spirit of the science of religion, whose keynote is all round growth – physical, mental and spiritual, through a converging search for truth in life. If this is the scope of religion, then it is best that we seek it when we have youthful eagerness, energy and enthusiasm and not when we are jaded, decrepit and numb. In case of dealing with natural energies, when do we put up a dam? When the river is in full flow. If there is no water flowing in the river, there is no meaning in putting up a dam at all. All progammes of river planning are feasible only when there is water flowing in the river. Similarly, it is only when there is youthful exuberance in us, its training and control with a view to orienting it towards truth, beauty and goodness can be meaningful and fruitful.

Religion is the philosophy of life and philosophy is seeing life as a whole. Politics, economics, sociology, art, ethics, all of them view life in segments and thus form departments of the science of man; similarly physics, astronomy, chemistry and biology etc., which view nature in segments, form departments of the sciences of physical nature. Philosophy is the science of sciences being the synthesis of the sciences of human nature and science of physical nature.

In our philosophy, we do not find any unbridgeable gap between the secular and religious. Life is seen in its totality, in its entirety. We all start with the secular and continuing our onward march enter the domain of spiritual, and discover that the secular is the earlier phase of the spiritual.

Religion is not a dogma or doctrine, it is a complete philosophy of life, the science or technique of integrated human development. It is continued education. Therefore, when you leave your school or college, you do not complete your education, you only complete your schooling, your academic education. Religion can give you that basic education by which you can continue your education through out your life and realize your fullest potentialities.

In India, many of us do not know anything about these wonderful and strengthening truths of our philosophy. To most of us including even the educated ones, religion is simply going to the temple, ringing a bell, performing some rituals, uttering some mantras, getting some prasad and coming back! How can such an understanding and practice of religion help us today? How can such practices make us spiritually strong and humanly matured? For being the first steps on the long road of human evolution and unfoldment, it is all right; but we must not stop there but should continue our onward march to the highest goal till the goal is reached.

Shri Ramkrishna approved the worship of idols till man does not develop capacity to love God’s lotus feet, to shed tears for him, and till his hairs stand on hearing or saying His name. Only when devotions ripes and the devotee sees God everywhere do rituals drop off.

“It is in love that religion exists and not in ceremonies. Unless a man is pure in body and mind and have sincere love in his heart, his going to the temple to worship God is vain. People have become so degraded in this Kaliyuga that they think that they can do anything and then will go to a holy place and their sins will be forgiven. But if a man goes with an impure mind in a temple, he adds to his sins that he had already and goes back home a worst man than before. If holy people live in a certain place, even if no temple is there, it is a Tirtha. If unholy people live in a place where there may be hundreds of temples, the Tirtha has vanished from that place.”

“Today, much of the religion practiced in India is laziness and sleepiness and most of our psychic energy has been immobilized by a wrong perception of religion. It has become a sort of escapism from struggles of life and society. We notice lack of energy, direction, self-confidence and strong will in our people because of a wrong understanding of the high and holy principles of renunciation. People seem to be half-asleep while working.”

Today, thanks to Swami Vivekananda and his message of Vedanta, we have the opportunity to understand religion as the science of human development, of the inner-human nature, as the science of human possibilities.

Yoga means Yoke, to join us to our reality, the God.

Yoga, according to the Gita, is a science of integrated human development and efficiency in action namely, outward productive-efficiency in various fields of human life and work which conduces to collective human welfare and an inward personality-efficiency, conducive to spiritual freedom.

Yoga can be practiced in offices, homes, farms and factories, on the bench, the bar and the pulpit. Banish the idea of yoga as something professional. Be each one of you a yogi, some more perfect some less, because everyone has the organic capacity to manifest this ever-present divinity within, by going beyond organic limitations. In this philosophy, there is the confluence of two energy systems, the energy of vision and practical implementation, and the energy of meditation and action. This signifies the confluence of the energy of Lord Krishna, the unarmed charioteer, the master of yoga and the energy of Arjuna, fully armed for heroic action under the guidance of the Lord. In other words it is the combination of philanthropic energy with philosophic calm.

A man is said to be a Yogi if his will has become firm, his mind is not disturbed by misery, he does not desire any happiness and is free of all attachments, all fears, all anger.

Yoga is three fold – of the body, speech and mind. The first is service of others; the second, truthfulness and the third, control and concentration of the mind.

Three things are necessary for a bird to fly – two wings and a tail as rudder for steering. Knowledge is one wing, love is the other and yoga of spirituality is the tail which helps to keep the balance.

Yoga is not sitting in the cave and doing some Pranayama or postures. But unfortunately, this and something lesser than this is what we generally understand by yoga. We have well-nigh destroyed this grand science of practical spirituality. It is a lofty philosophy; it is strong food for weak stomachs. It is a teaching imparted by a great and dynamic teacher to his great and dynamic disciple.

As long as you are concerned with your own little profit and pleasure, you do not have yoga at all. Animals do not practice yoga. The philosophy of yoga was lost when it fell into the hands of weaklings and people bereft of disciplined and trained minds and hearts. It is on this vital missing link that we have to concentrate our national attention and try to introduce it into our education, religion and inter-human relations.

“Religion must be studied on a broader basis than before. All narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion must be banished. That each nation or tribe should have its own particular God and think that every other is wrong is a superstition that should belong to the past.”

“Religions differ not in their basics but only in their practice. As so many rivers, having their source in different mountains, roll down crooked or straight and at last come into the ocean, so all these various creeds and religions, taking their start from different standpoints and running through crooked or straight courses, at last come into thee. Each religion represents a great truth, a particular excellence, something which is its soul. Knowing that consciously or unconsciously, we are struggling to reach the same goal, why should we be impatient and intolerant?”

“Unity in variety is the plan of nature and we in India have recognized it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adapt itself to them. It places before society only one coat which must fit to each and all alike and if it does not fit, either one must go without the coat or the person and his beliefs are to be cut to the size of the coat.”

“As soon as a man comes into the company of those who do not believe as he does, his very nature changes. He becomes the very embodiment of cruelty and fanaticism. It is his own opinion he fights for, not for the truth.”

“All the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion and country have only one way of loving their ideal that is by hating all other ideas. That is why, the same man who loves his ideal so much becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he sees and hears any other idea. The same man who is kind, good, honest and loving to the people of his own opinion will not hesitate to do the vilest of deeds to the followers of other religions.”

Those sects which jealously build their boundaries with too rigid creeds excluding all spontaneous movement of the living spirit, may hoard their theology but they kill religion. Dogmatism and cock-sureness which stifle the spirit of free inquiry are as much enemies of true science as of true religion.

Unfortunately, many a times the over zealous and blind devotees, successors and followers of the great ones sacrifice truth, in their devotion and esteem of those great ones. They kill the principle for the person

To become fanatic after a particular religion or faith is like putting blinkers on one’s mind’s eyes which hinders expansion of the Self of a man beyond his own sect, caste or religion.

Religions degenerate into fanaticism and sectarianism if based on passions. Then they are no better than party politics or some such thing.

True religion which regards all humanity as one and indivisible is a product of dispassionate thinking and hence progressive in outlook and action.

Religion helps to compose the distractions of the world in which we live. Before doing this and in order to be able to do this, it has to first of all compose its own distractions proceeding from sectarian narrowness and undue emphasis on non-essentials.

“Every religion contains certain universal elements along with others that are particular and parochial. The message of these universal elements in all religions to humanity is exactly identical. If the universal elements in all religions can only be released from their parochial and regional settings, religion can be made a progressive force in the world today, like science which is supra-national.”

“All religious ideals of the future must embrace all that exists in the world that is good and great and at the same time should have infinite scope for future development. The attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all religions and all moral and philosophical teachings”.

Religion is neither in books nor in intellectual consent, or in reasoning. Reason, theories, documents, doctrines, books, religious ceremonies are all but helps to religion-religion is realization.

He, whose book of the heart has been opened, needs no other books. They (books) are merely the experiences of others, and in the realm of true religion, book learning has no place. Religion, which is the highest wisdom, cannot be bought nor can be acquired from the books.

No dogma or creed or frenzied actions can satisfy the hunger of a religious heart. Its only bread is spiritual realization. Religion is a matter of inner-experience, coming in touch with spiritual facts, and not a matter of belief or dogma or conformity. The spiritual view of religion, as distinguished from an ethnical or dogmatic view, makes religion not only an agent for cultivation of the spirit of tolerance and inquiry in its own sphere alone but it also helps in fostering it in other departments of life.

Religion is realizations; not talks, or doctrines or theories however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.

There is a very big difference between realization and mere talking. Any fool can talk, even parrots can talk. Talking is one thing; realizing another. For instance, maps are good but when you see the country itself you can see the difference. Those who have realized truths do not require the tool of logic and intellect to understand it, it becomes the life of their lives.

Religion is a question of fact and not of talk. We have to analyze our souls to find what is there. To most of us religion is a mere intellectual assent, a talk. We often consider a man religious who can talk well about it but that is only for the enjoyment of the learned alone. It is not true religion.

With most people religion is a sort of intellectual assent and goes no further than a document. It is not religion, it is better to be an atheist than to have that sort of religion. Religion does not depend on our intellectual assent, or dissent. If any religion is true, it must be able to show us the soul, to show us God and the truth in ourselves.

“Truth is to be judged by truth alone and by nothing else; the sun needs no torch by which to see it. Even if truth destroys the whole universe, still it is truth; stand by it.”

People hear a few lectures or worship this or that God and think they have done enough. This is the way of fools and not of attaining perfection or spirituality.

“Flies sit at times on the sweetmeats kept exposed in the shop of a confectioner; but no sooner a sweeper passes by with a basketful of filth, then the flies leave the sweetmeats and run to the filth in the basket. But the honeybees always drink honey from the flowers. The worldly men are like the flies. At times they get a momentary taste of the divine sweetness, but their natural tendency for filth soon brings them back to the dunghill of the world; whereas the men of realization are always absorbed in the beatific contemplation of the divine love.”

Today, we need a scientific religion which is the synthesis of the knowledge of within and without.

If knowledge is the highest gain that science can give, what could be higher than the knowledge of God or soul or man’s own nature which comes by the study of religion?.

Previously there was religious superstition and now it is scientific. Through the first came life-giving idea of spirituality and through the latter comes lust and greed. The first led to worship of God, the other to the worship of filthy lucre, fame or power.

Our scientific power has overrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles but misguided men.

It is now clear that science alone is incapable of ordering life. A life can only be ordered by ethical and social values.

When science and religion will meet and shake hands, that will be the religion of future, and if we can make it happen then we may be sure that it will be for all times and all people.

This enrichment of the inner-life, this deepening of the roots to match with the widening of the branches, this strengthening of the stakes of a tent along with the lengthening of its ropes, is the unique contribution of religion to human civilization. Steady wisdom and stable character are its watchwords, hence its message is eternal and perennial. Under the guidance of Vedanta, science, politics and religion will function in harmony and co-operation to ensure total human welfare everywhere. In Swami Vivekananda, religion has shaken hands with science. According to him the aim of all three – religion, science and democracy, is the creation of a matrix of human excellence and general welfare. Their synthesis alone can ensure for man that inner enrichment and poise in the context of external prosperity and progress leading to fulfillment of man and all-round development of the nation.

Today, there is an enormous amount of scientific and political powers in the hands of man – hands often itching for a fight or mischief. The problem of nations at present is how to handle these powers so that it do not result in corruption of the wielders and confusion and harm to the people at large. The spiritual meaning of democratic living and fulfillment, as thought by India’s ancient and modern seers, is the religion of spiritual oneness of humanity and this has to be revived and reactivated in our thinking and day to day living; its powerful influence brought to bear on the new forms of scientific and social powers, giving them a higher direction and loftier spiritual and human purpose.

Neither science nor politics can give man peace or happiness, joy or a sense of fulfillment. These non-utilitarian values proceed from religion and morality. Science and politics can create conditions for their emergence but cannot create them directly. Without this spiritual direction, the forces generated by science and politics nourish the lower-self of man and become the source of sorrow and discord, division and instability for the individual and the society. A knowledge which leads to the increase of sorrow is not knowledge but ignorance, the offspring of spiritual blindness. It is spiritual awareness alone that transforms all knowledge into wisdom, into all forms of peace and happiness, love and service.

The transformation of the world which science and politics seek, is not sufficient to ensure human welfare without the change of human nature itself, which religion seeks through the discipline of the whole personality. It is only such spiritually disciplined individuals who can ensure for humanity at large such values of life as liberty, fraternity, equality and pursuit of happiness. Peace, prosperity, stability and orderly progress of civilization, depend entirely upon the intensification of the spiritual awareness of humanity. Without the inspiration of religion, civilization will always remain an unstable structure. That is the verdict of history and India has held on to this faith from the hoary past of her history. Science or politics, art or social graces are but means to advance the spiritual life of a man. Guided by the comprehensive philosophy of Vedanta, the culture of India has not rejected or excluded any of the tested human values but has absorbed them. Other social structures, tall and powerful, have decayed and fallen, having been built on sand of materialism and worldliness, but this structure, vast and lofty, has endured having been built on the rock of spirituality and unworldliness.

Human welfare partly depends upon the knowledge and the power to control the human environments, natural and social. Religion has always given an honoured place both to science and politics in the sphere of human welfare. But it has also taught India that these two are not enough for total human welfare by stressing on the fact that man is more than a political animal, more than an intellectual being and has depths and heights which cannot be compassed by or compressed in a purely materialistic philosophy.

All political systems including democracy will remain sick and continue to become more sickly so long as human life, individual and collective, is founded on the philosophy of materialism which has no insight into the spiritual dimensions of human personality and sees man only as a body seeking physical satisfactions. When one becomes aware of the shining truth of the divine nature of man, one discovers a new focus of human freedom, dignity, equality and redemption built into himself and waiting only to be discovered and unfolded.

Now, even though the domains of religion and science are clearly demarcated, however, there exists a strong reciprocal relationship and inter-dependence between the two. Though religion may be that determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, to learn from science in the broadest sense what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals which it has set for itself. But the truths of science can only be followed by those who are thoroughly inclined to rational thinking. The source of feeling, however, springs from the depths of religion. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without profound faith in the rationality and veracity of the truths of religion. The situation may be aptly expressed in words of Albert Einstein that “Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.”

“Both science and religion have the avowed aim of enriching and enhancing human life. Religion without science is helpless while science without religion is risky. Though both are complementary to each other, yet religion goes into the depths of human problems and sets the direction for all human activities. And this direction is the spiritual direction, the liberation of spirit lying embedded in everyone. Religion not only sets the goal but also defines the path. The goal is spiritual freedom from all bonds, physical or mental, external or internal, good or evil, so that the human soul may shine in its essential pure and divine nature. And the path is through understanding and control of nature – external nature through science and internal nature through ethics and religion. Thus, life becomes a continuous school of intelligent self-discipline for man by which knowledge of the external and internal becomes synthesized and fused into wisdom. This is the ‘Bhudhi-yoga’ of the Gita which preaches man to rise above the sensory level and take refuge in wisdom.”

Modern world conditions, engendered by science and technology, call for transformation of the energies of hatred and violence, competition and strife, into the moral forces of co-operation and service, love and peace. The moral education of modern man, in consonance with his intellectual attainments and technical achievements, is the most urgent task facing humanity today, though it may sound unrealistic in the present situation of suspicion and self-disbelief.

Human well-being and progress rest on both – the spirit of religion and the spirit of scientific knowledge. Neither can attain its true effectiveness without the support of the other.

Unfortunately today, the word ‘religion’ carries to some people a bit of bad odour. It is because religion became identified with untested beliefs and dogmas and those got shattered in the process of scientific enquiry. In the history of Europe, religion has often functioned as an ‘enemy’ of science, but the experience is not universal or invariable. On the other hand, our entire mental make up, proceeding from our long cultural experience, is not only not hostile, but is very congenial and hospitable to the scientific spirit. The essential basis of Indian thought fits in well with scientific temper and approach. It is based on a fearless search for truth, on the solidarity and divinity of man and everything living. Science will have no opposition from philosophy or religion in India as it had in the West. Our national thought is quite helpful and conducive to the growth of science, as we have a temper that always honours and welcomes knowledge of any kind.

India proclaimed that human excellence comprises in the manifestation of the inborn Divinity by man, and the discipline that makes it possible is religion and not physical science or technology or politics. They are secondary but religion is primary. By trying to bring order and happiness in the external life of man, they help religion to enrich and deepen his inner-life. In the context of human life, there never was and can be any conflict between these two values and disciplines. It is unfortunate that religion in the West was intolerant and anti-science and they (science and religion) appeared as two conflicting disciplines and values to their scientists. But the difference is only in their working. Religion moves on faith and science believes after investigation. Both are same and not contradictory with the same goal of taking us to truth.

The intellectual force of science and social force of democracy have had devastating effects on the thought and life of the Western man. These new forces could not be assimilated with the Western religious consciousness and traditions which did not prove to be a hospitable soil for them. It resulted in a schism in the mind of Western man, denoted by the ever-recurrent conflicts between faith and reason, the spirit and matter.

According to Indian wisdom, science and religion are two great disciplines which if applied separately, can be counter-productive in the long run, but if combined harmoniously, can bring about an all-round expression of human genius and total fulfillment. But unfortunately, for the last few centuries the relationship between the two in the Western context and elsewhere also, due to the world-wide impact of Western culture, has not been quite happy in modern times. However, a new approach is becoming palpable, as a good number of representative thinkers amongst scientists and religious people, are beginning to discern a close relationship between them. They are slowly converging to the point of view that science and religion can heartily embrace each other without detriment to the cause for which each stands, and work together for the good of humanity. It is being increasingly felt by both the parties that there are elements in science that religion can adopt in order to fortify itself, and similarly, there are elements in religion which can deepen and strengthen the knowledge of science.

“India’s philosophy has no fear of science or modern thought. It considers that the scientific discipline can and should be applied, not only to understand and control the processes and powers of external physical nature, but also to the internal-nature of man. The first is being wonderfully achieved by modern science and technology; but this achievement alone can never by itself confer supreme happiness or a sense of total fulfillment directly to man; it can, at best, create only the conditions for his happiness. This happiness or fulfillment is the product of another discipline and technique which is religion, not in its ethnic or dogmatic sense, but in its essential aspect of striving for spiritual realization. Though, Western civilization has ignored the importance of this discipline largely due to local historical circumstances; yet both these disciplines, science and religion, are complementary and not exclusive. According to Indian philosophy, the science of external nature cannot conflict with the science of internal nature, when both are identical disciplines though with different subject matters. Their aims are also identical – the enrichment of human life through increase of knowledge and control of nature and life. The modern world is groping towards this great consummation – the synthesis of the two great values of the human heritage, the science of physical nature (physical science) and the science of human nature (Religion). This is the only way by which man’s increase of knowledge can lead to increase in his wisdom, so that happiness shall be his lot and not sorrow.”

“Is it required for religion to justify itself with the help of reason as every other science justifies itself? Are the same methods of investigation which we apply to the knowledge of science, to be applied to the science of religion? In my opinion, this must be so; and I am also of the view that the sooner it is done, the better. If a religion is destroyed by such investigations, then it was all the time useless, was an unworthy superstition; and the sooner it goes, the better. I am thoroughly convinced that its destruction would be the best thing that could happen. All that is dross will be taken off, no doubt, but the essential parts of religion will emerge triumphant out of this process. Not only will it be made scientific – as scientific, at least, as any of the conclusions of physics or chemistry, but at the same time will have greater admissibility; because physics or chemistry has no internal mandate to vouch for their truths which religion has. Real inspiration never contradicts reason but fulfils it.”

The philosophy of Vedanta expects, invites and welcomes all critical evaluation by keen minds allowing free inquiry into the truths it places before you; that is what makes it a science, the science of man in depth. The more you question and inquire, the more you get from it. Mostly, religions are based on dogmas which you are forbidden to question; you have just to accept everything. From this obduracy arises their opposition to science, whose very lifeblood is this rational inquiry. It is the uniqueness of our philosophy of Vedanta that it encourages all such inquiries and holds that religion has a scientific dimension.

It is not a fact that in India spiritual thoughts were never a subject of self-conscious critical scrutiny but on the other hand rational assessment has always been encouraged in evaluation of religious beliefs.

Scientific temper and attitude with a passion for truth and stress on verification of conclusions is common both to religion and to physical science, as understood in Vedanta. A scientist discovers a truth in his laboratory and publishes it in a scientific journal. Another scientist checks it and verifies it. Still it is not enough. Several other research workers re-check it and finally it emerges as an established scientific truth. Similar was the process in the world of religion in our Upanisads. A sage discovered the divine core behind man’s neural or psychical dimensions; and he called it the Atman, the divine Self. Another sage took up this challenging conclusion and after verification found it as true, and likewise it passed the test of several other sages as well. Ultimately, it emerged as the truth about the man, his inner-nature and possibilities and its infinite dimension which on the first sight appeared to be finite and organically limited. This is not just a mere opinion or personal view but the highest truth about each of us, with opportunity for everybody to verify and rediscover it for himself.

Religion in India is not dogmatic or static. It is a rational synthesis which goes on gathering into itself new conceptions as other philosophies progress. It is experimental and flexible in nature and attempts to keep pace with the progress of thought. The common criticism that the Indian spiritual thoughts by emphasizing on its scientific aspect, puts philosophy in place of religion, brings out the rational character of religion in India. No religious movements has ever developed without a philosophic content. In India according to Havel, “Religion is not a dogma, but a working hypothesis of human conduct, adapted to different stages of spiritual development and different conditions of life.” Whenever it tended to crystallize itself in a fixed creed, there came spiritual revivals and philosophical reactions which threw untested beliefs into the crucible of rational scrutiny, vindicating the true and belying the false. Again and again, we shall see, that when traditionally accepted beliefs were found inadequate on account of changed times, and the people became impatient of them, the insight of a new teacher, a Krishna, Buddha, Shankaracharya, Vivekananda or Gandhi supervened to stir the depths of spiritual life. These were undoubtedly great moments in the history of Indian thoughts, times of introspection and prospective contemplation, when at the call of the spirit man makes a fresh start and goes forth on a new venture. It is the close relationship between the truths of spirituality and the facts of daily life of the people which makes religion very much real and relevant.

That is why in India, in the field of religion , the question is not of believing in a creed or dogma, but is of experimenting and experiencing the truth about the soul and God. Only believing is of no use. Any fool can say ‘I believe’; yet he or she remains in the same stagnant state for years and years together. That belief has not made any difference in his or her character, or inter-human relationships. And one who follows the science of religion does not remain satisfied with such cosy belief yielding only to static-piety but he dares to question his belief, to experiment with it, and does not find satisfaction till he has arrived at the core of his belief. The training of the senses and mind, making them effective instruments in this search of truth and character-excellence, is education; and religion is only continued education.

Though religion in India has not been able to get itself totally free from superstitions, yet its spiritual thoughts were never hampered by superstitions or religious rituals. The two were never confused. Due to close affinity between theory and practical life, a philosophy which could not withstand the test of realities of life in the larger sense of the term, had no scope of survival, as spiritual realization becomes a way of life for those who can comprehend the close relationship between life and theory.

The problem of India in the modern age is the assimilation of forces of science and democracy which are being grafted on to her spiritual tree. The success of this experiment depends upon two factors; the vitality of the spiritual sap running in the tree and its hospitality to the new forces contained in the grafts.

When our people will understand religion in the right perspective as a science like all other physical sciences, based on both reason and faith, then we shall see the blossoming of religion as dynamic spirituality and the withering away of the current noisy, showy, and piety-fringed worldliness, mistaken as religion by most of the people.

Science is characterized by a keen spirit of inquiry and a deep passion for truth. Under its supreme stimulus and disciplined under its rigorous methods, science has enabled the human mind to unravel secret after secret helping it enormously in increasing man’s knowledge about the external world. In its onward march, science as knowledge has disturbed the wayside calm of untested beliefs and comfortable dogmas and therein lies its primary explosive character. A secondary explosive character appeared when science as knowledge flowed into science of power. Three hundred years of technological progress has ushered in a new era in the history of human civilization wherein by controlling the forces of nature, technology has placed a vast amount of power in the hands of men, a part of which has found beneficial expression in effecting their material well-being but the rest in the absence of any fixed aim or purpose has functioned as an impediment to his evolution and even has worked against human interests in form of strife, insecurity and sorrow. “And unless man increases in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will be increase of sorrow” says Bertrand Russel.

“I know not with what weapons world war III will be fought, but world war IV will certainly be fought with sticks and stones”

The practice of religion is nothing but a ceaseless quest for the facts of the inner-life and a dispassionate study of these facts constitute the science of religion, which seeks to unravel the mystery of our inner-being – the light which guides us and the laws that mould us. If man, the known, taken as body and its nature is the subject to the science of physical nature, man, the unknown, as a spirit is the subject to the science of religion. The synthesis of these two sciences is the job of philosophy as is understood in India.

If the nineteenth century was the century of conflict and dissension, the twentieth century became the century of reconciliation and harmony as a result of sincere efforts on the part of both science and religion to reassess itself and to understand each other. Today, we need a cohesive relationship between science and religion when both of them have shed their respective prejudices and have come closer to each other imbued with the identical passion of serving man and his civilization. It is only such a philosophy of synthesis, which blends in itself the flavour of faith of religion and the flavour of reason of science, that can refurbish modern man by restoring to him the integrity of his being and the unity of that being with the world around him.

In spite of revolution in the domain of science and technology, modern man has not been able to discard religion altogether. Although the rational man of today is not allowing religion to enter into his life by the front door, yet it enters his life surreptitiously by the back door. This shows the importance of religion as a vital force. But what enters thus, in the absence of the purifying aid of rational thought, is mostly passionate, communal and reactionary.

“The impact of the modern Western civilization has been pervasive in thought and belief as much as in life and practice. The methods and results of rational investigation of science came inevitably and increasingly into conflict with the untested dogmas and assumptions of the Western man which have filled a large part of his religious thought-background for over a thousand years. With the discrediting of that old thought-background by the modern scientific thought, religion itself became discredited, forcing modern Western man to shift his loyalty from religion to mundane values. The technological revolution initiated by modern science in the seventeenth century helped to accentuate these mundane values and sharpen man’s worldly appetites during the next three centuries. These impacts were felt with greater or lesser severity in the rest of the world as well.”

“The scientific revolution of the 17th and succeeding centuries, though led to the banishment of religion, yet it gave to modern man a large measure of control over external nature; but it also resulted in the diminution of his control over his internal-nature, causing impoverishment of his inner-life and consequent emergence of the malevolent elements of modern civilization. On the other hand, religion had held before man a discipline leading to freedom from the senses. Being the easier of the two, man everywhere was attracted by the ethos of science, as it allowed a free rein to his impulses and inclinations. Resultantly, the philosophy of modern civilization stimulates the native appetites of man, while the ever-improving technology strives to satisfy those appetites free from the checks and restraints of religion. This process of mutual chasing of appetites and satisfactions, merrily proceeded from the beginning of the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century, throwing up philosophies and ideologies aglow with melioristic hopes, articulated in the slogans of enlightenment, rationalism, humanism and progress”.

Science as verified knowledge does not believe in assumptions or untested beliefs; as it is the history of triumph of the spirit of free enquiry over unverified opinions, prejudices and dogmas. It is a remarkable adventure of human spirit which has borne abundant fruits not only mental but also material. It is because of the forces of prejudice from the side of religion in West which discredited it, to be disparaged as a dangerous error or illusion, that has given science high prestige and authority over the forces of religion. Though it led to the eclipse of religion in the West, yet underneath, there was always an uneasy feeling in the hearts of many of them that something of deep value and culture had also been lost; that the baby has also been thrown with the bath-water. And this led to reassessment of the meaning and scope of religion to make it in accord with the spirit and temper of science by bridging the gap between faith and reason for total fulfillment of human evolution.

The forces of science consist of both benevolent and malevolent elements. The former constitutes an impressive feature of modern civilization; removal of distance and physical unification of the world, the theory and practice of democracy based on the dignity and worth of the individual, the plans and measures for all-round social welfare on world-wide scale, the increase of religious tolerance and the gradual emergence of an international outlook, all these are the products of the conquest of external nature by science and are achievements unparalleled in human history.

The malevolent elements had begun to obtrude themselves from the end of the 19th century in form of an increasing tempo of selfishness, violence and war. Though the 17th century Europe had banished religion as the centre of human loyalty and substituted sensory values in its place, but despite this banishment, Western man always had a keen feeling that he was banishing a thing of great value from life; but he could not help it as that value has been presented to him enclosed in such elements which were irrational, anti-social and alien to his newly found scientific and rational temper, aims and methods.

“Today the world is being re-shaped by science and democracy. This re-shaping is throwing up new and serious problems before the world. Man today is unhappy, unstable and insecure. Vast knowledge and power given by science and democracy has inflated his ego and increased his power for evil more than for good. Efficiency as to means and folly as to ends have made him the only possible destroyer of the new civilization. The possession of weapons of mass destruction and the apprehension of their possible misuse have put a huge question mark as to the destiny of human race in face of high hopes raised by scientific-humanism and ethics. The fruits of science are being used for purposes both destructive as well as constructive. They are running parallel to each other and the fear that the destructive may overreach the constructive has become a constant spectre to the modern man. We cannot blame science for this unfortunately portent situation because it is neutral so far as its application or utilization is concerned. But it does not bring the problem to any solution. There is seen to be more insecurity in the scientific world than in pre-scientific one. Yet man needs the service of science very much but not without safeguards against its possible misuse. So, there is necessity for a philosophy which will join the liberal and rational spirit of science to the ardour and faith of religion.”

“Today, we have no grip on the energies released by physical science and cannot discipline and direct them to suit our growth, development and fulfillment. To do so, we need a great spiritual strength which is very much missing in us today. It is like a youth riding a powerful horse without learning how to control and take it in the desired direction in a masterly way. So, the horse is taking the rider wherever it likes; and the horse is enjoying the ride and the rider is just becoming a victim of that ride! If we can properly control and guide this horse of physical science by means of our inherent spiritual strength, how wonderful this ride will be! We must start developing this vital dimension of our personality from the very childhood to achieve parallel spiritual growth along with physical and intellectual growth. Otherwise the world will shape us and not we the world.”

One is religious as a child; and may be still religious when he grows
old, but there may not be any spiritual growth. He may have the same weakness and wickedness as he had earlier even in his old age, yet he is called religious. “What we need is not static-piety but dynamic-spirituality. If we grow a plant on the first day with two leaves and if after putting manure, water and other nutrients, still find only those two leaves, we start thinking that there is something wrong with the plant. We have understood this law of growth re plants and crops but not in respect of man and his religion. Hence we get only a piety-fringed worldliness that can co-exist with selfishness, violence and intolerance along with physical and intellectual growth. We must grow beyond this physical-intellectual dimension to unfold and manifest our ever present divine spirit and to be able to harness properly, the vast powers that modern science has placed in our hands. If this is not done, man will destroy himself.”

If atavism gains, you go down; if evolution gains, you go up. The only reality in the world is change; how can you stop that? Life, like a river, has to flow continuously. It can’t be stopped at one particular point. Don’t remain stuck in your life’s journey at one point as we are travelers on the way to eternity.

“All the devilry for which religion is blamed with, is not at all due to any fault on the part of religion. No religion ever persecuted men, no religion ever burnt witches, no religion ever did any of these things. What then incited people to do these acts? Politics – but never religion; and if politics takes the name of religion, whose fault it is?” says Swami Vivekanada. It is political priesthood that, by its reiterated assertion of aggressive ignorance, distorts truth and perpetuates ignorance. It substitutes its own crude and narrow interpretation for the truth which perverts the people and prevents their normal progress.

Most of the public workers are arrant cowards and dare not to say, for fear of public opinion, a hundredth part of what they feel to be really true in religious matters. They are always anxious not to incur the displeasure of any section of the society and thus, are not only cautious but also dishonest in ventilating the views which they personally cherish. They always take recourse to sophistry.

“India is a land where all religions and all honestly-held ideologies and convictions cease to be conflicting and colliding units but become co-operative forces for enriching human life.” But religion becomes a limited creed and sect when it becomes dominated by the political elements, who make such a pious and holy thing as religion, communal.

“Religion is a source of great power. It is like the fire which can warm us or cook our food but can also burn us down. The soul is pure and perfect, so the man who does an evil act is giving a lie to himself; belying his true nature. Those who are evil-doers, whose minds are not peaceful, can never see the light. Only those who are true in heart, pure in deeds and able to control their senses, will see it. It can be a source of strength and unity as it used to be previously or could be a source of dissension and disharmony as at present.”

When religion falls in the hands of ignorant people they make it a mere play on words and a thing not to be carried out into practice; then the knowing ones start looking down with scorn upon anything that belongs to religion.

“Do not think that the man who believes in no church or belongs to no sect or boasts of his unbelief, is a rationalist. Not at all. In modern times it is rather a bravado to do so. To be a rationalist, requires more than unbelief. You must be able not only to reason, but also to follow the dictates of your reason.”

Ignorance of the ancient Indian thoughts in matters of spirituality is profound. Most of our people are very dismissive about the whole of our Indian religious philosophy as worthless pedantry, pantheism or mere play on words.

“As a matter of fact 99.9 percent of those who attack religion are utterly ignorant and have never attempted to analyze their minds. So their arguments do not have anymore weight against religion than the words of a blind man who calls others fools who believe in the sun.” says Swami Vivekanada.

Have deliberations and analyze the tenets of religion and then, if the result agrees with reason and conduces to the good of one and all, accept it and live up to it.

Swami Vivekanada said, “No destruction of religion is necessary to improve the society, and that this state of society exists not on account of religion but because religion has not been applied to society as it should have been.”

Religion is of deeper importance than politics, since it goes to the root and deals with the essentials of conduct, but it will take ages to bring religion into politics.

Today politics has become the pivot of our national life. In line with this perverted situation, people are being always encouraged to become ‘politically conscious.’ This has gone to such an extent that all our life-values are being tried to be recast according to the dictates of politics. Everything – religion, history and others are being made subservient to political exigencies. Politics has been made the end and all other things the means to that end. The body of our nation and all its ethos and values, are being cut down to the size of the cloth of politics, to fit in with the selfish demands of politics. The body of the nation is being hammered and strained to adjust itself to the bed of politics even at the cost of imperiling our age-old social life.

If a nation has too much of politics, it is bound to wither and die. Too much of politics destroys the quality of politics as well as the moral tone of the individuals, damages the fabric of society and tends to kill the patriotic impulse. The development of political consciousness in the people is necessary, but sheer pursuit of power and nothing but power and the misuse of that power by those from whom much good is expected, sends the whole nation to despair. The disease of cynicism, arising out of such misdirected political energies and unconcern for the people, is worse than any deadly disease.

At present in our country, politics holds the central place as a collective human endeavour to help ourselves in realizing certain essential values of life. Therefore, it cannot be neglected. But we must along with it, give due weightage to other aspects and activities of our national life. Today, we are not isolated individuals living remote from society but are its units. As members, we are component parts of society, whether national or global, and we have to regulate our conduct, behaviour and activities, keeping in view the welfare of all as a whole.

“Politics as a social science seeking to ensure collective human welfare needs knowledge and dispassionate thinking. The modern world is trying to evolve into wider political entities as national and multinational states. The next step is the evolution of a world-state, a political organization of mankind as a whole. And here the aim and end of politics and religion becomes one and the same. Here politics needs religious guidance for that consummation. That is why religion is central to politics as indeed it is to all aspects of life.”

Both politics and religion stand to gain immensely from an approach to each other under the guidance of a philosophy such as Vedanta which dares to view life in its totality and has for its declared objective the happiness and welfare of humanity as a whole.

Today, the two rivers of spirituality, one of the spirituality of practical religion and other of the spirituality of politics need to flow together to irrigate the life of our people in a fundamental way.

“When we apply religion in our collective life, we purify not only politics or democracy but religion as well. There cannot be any divorce between true religion, genuine politics and public life. Religion, as understood in its wider implications, is not a set of dogmas or rituals but a continued inspiration to take man to the higher ethical and spiritual level. We all know how the passions of the heart upset the balance of mind and the normal course of life. Ideals and ideas in the heart of man are more powerful than any weapon. The root of every happening in the world can be traced to the mind of man. Passions and bad-temper ultimately lead to world-wide conflagrations. Wars begin in the minds of men and it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed. People who have not learnt to restrain their passions of greed, intolerance, hatred and violence form a very shaky foundation for the structure of any political state.” Here religion can help us a lot.

Without a firm ethical and human base, no higher spiritual life is possible. Many of our people think that a man can be selfish and crooked and can practice meditation and yoga at the same time. They also believe that one can become a saint or can please God with offerings of money. We have to realize that it is foolish and impossible. Unless one is a good citizen one cannot be a true saint. We have to erect the edifice of sainthood on the base of manhood, otherwise it will be a cheap or fake sainthood. We have a plenty of them with us to our shame and sorrow.

“The philosophy of the Gita combines true politics, which is the search of power for service, and true religion in one. It puts character development through service and renunciation as the first stage of true religion. There are higher stages but they come later after we successfully attain the lower stages. But unfortunately, we want to get to the highest without attaining the lower steps. In the name of religion, our people sought sainthood before achieving manhood first. So we got sham sainthood and missed manhood in the bargain as true saintliness is built only on genuine manliness.”

Today, after independence, we have the opportunity to rebuild our nation and it is possible only if we shed our attitude of static-piety and adopt the ideal of dynamic spirituality as the essential message of religion. “All religions seek to lift man from his trivial ego-centred individuality to an expansive God-centred personality. This is what Shri Ram Krishna describes as the growth of ‘raw ego’ which delights in self-centredness and exploitation into the ‘ripe ego’ which delights in renunciation of the little-self and service of others. It must be a combination of manliness and saintliness. When one combines power and social responsibility with the strength arising from character, clear thinking, dedication and practical efficiency, one effects in oneself this unique synthesis.”

Manliness is the result of the fusion of two energies in an individual namely, the intellectual energy of knowledge and the spiritual energy of character, and the field for cultivation of these is life itself.

The spiritual growth of an enlightened citizen makes for close inter-relation between true politics and true religion according to the Gita. Too long we have separated man’s external life from man’s internal life for which both of them have suffered mutilation and malnutrition. Now we have to integrate human life as a whole.

“What we want is both external and internal growth. We need external for physical growth of man and society, and the internal for his expansion of understanding, sympathy, love and service beyond his self-interests. Through this growth a spirit of service will inspire man at all times carrying away in its omnipotent flood all that is weak and defective, raising India to the platform, it is destined to occupy in the providence of God, crowned with more glory than it ever had in the past, the reward of centuries of silent suffering, and fulfilling its mission amongst the races of the world – the evolution of spiritual humanity.”

In our search of God in temples and outward rituals, we have failed to consider how to relate ourselves to man, how to live in co-operation and amity with our neighbours, how to deal with the other individuals in society for mutual benefit. While cherishing a Godward awareness, we neglected the understanding and cultivation of many aspects of that manward awareness, which forms the sturdy base for it. It has been the cause of our political subjection, economic weakness and general social immobilisation. In this modern period we have to take up that neglected theme in a big way, not only to strengthen our new democratic state and society, but also to purify and strengthen our precious age-old religious inheritance as well.

For ages we have been devising ways to relate ourselves to God and called it the religious field, but neglected and failed to work out how to relate ourselves to man in all its implications in the socio-political field, with its political, economic and social disciplines. The philosophy of Gita and Upanisads coalesces both the philosophies of man relating to man and man relating to God, under one single philosophy of seeing and serving God in man. Thus enlightened citizenship, with its secular, political, economic and social quests and achievements, becomes part and parcel of man’s education for total spiritual growth, development and fulfillment.

During the past few centuries we in India tended to be narrow and selfish; our social feelings have become entirely dried up. Our religious life has become limited to a few rituals and occasional charity. Professing to be highly religious, we became thoroughly worldly. Worldliness has infected every aspect of our outlook and behaviour, making us unworthy as citizens of a free society. Our people have very little concern for the happiness of others in the society.

Today, religion itself has fallen in evil days. The pure religion of the Upanisads and the Gita has degenerated into meaningless rituals and rampant superstitions. The people have almost lost their spirit of independence and fearlessness due to long subjection. Social rigidity and exclusiveness has engendered many injustices and oppressions. The dynamic conceptions of life has moved in the narrowest circles possible. Society as a whole seems to have forgotten its larger purpose and plans.

That is what has happened to us during the last few centuries. In spite of our piety and religiosity, which were becoming increasingly showy, noisy and fussy, we remained essentially worldly, selfish and self-centred. We practiced what may be termed a piety-fringed worldliness which failed to generate any ethical sense, human concern or character-efficiency. We exploited each other and reduced our collective life to elementary levels. Vivekananda tried to rescue us from that false idea of religion as static-piety and inspired us with his message of religion as dynamic-spirituality, with its twin expressions of renunciation and service.

“Live in the world but don’t allow the world to live in you”. This kind of teaching about human life and behaviour was never given to us as the true meaning of religion during last few centuries. Religion was presented to us as a bundle of do’s and don’ts; with many frightening restrictions and alluring post-mortem temptations. This myopic view has arrested our further growth and has made us stagnant, uncreative, selfish, exploitative and violent.

Too long we have made a distinction between life of the world and the life of religion, and we have been widening that gap all the time in spite of clear and definite teachings of the Gita. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda came to bridge this gulf between life and religion. In the words of Ramakrishna, ‘Live in the world; but don’t allow worldliness to enter into you’. If worldliness enters, life will become heavy with selfishness and pettiness, jealousy and exploitation, making for stagnation. But with the stirring of the ever-present divinity in the heart, life flows out in a spirit of love and service, making for dynamism and progress. So Ramakrishna adds by way of illustration: ‘The boat will be on the water; but water should not be in the boat. That is the wrong place for the water and bad for the boat. For then, the boat will become stagnant and unfit for the purpose for which it is meant’.

Today, though we do all the pettiest acts of our religion, but they do not result in our spiritual growth or enhancement of our spiritual awareness. We continue to be steeped in worldliness with our petty attachments, hatreds, mutual exploitations and divisive loyalties. These are hurdles in way of our developing an integrated social order and evolving a progressive political state which can serve as a perfect instrument of collective human welfare. This has resulted in our country becoming the victim of history whereas other nations have been creating history.

Our philosophy commands us to visualise the entire society as one living embodiment. Every individual living in it is a limb of this great body. Just as the body looks after the needs of every little organ, so also the society should view the interests, needs and aspirations of every individual. In a living body, can there be any part which can be “untouchable” or can be neglected? Can there be any sense of “high” and “low” between one and the other? It is because this unifying social conciousness has been lost that various evils have cropped up in our society.

For an all round development, no limb of our social body should remain weak or disabled. It is like having a weak link in the chain. As after all, the strength of the chain lies in its weakest link and our weakest link is the absence of the feeling of oneness. We do not seem to possess a sense of social-life, no desire to help each other, no love towards our own fellow beings.

Today in India the weaker sections are treated with utter unconcern and callousness, are subjected to various oppressive running about apart from bribing even to get small but urgent work done. Our officers treat a VIP with effusive benevolence but treat an ordinary citizen with cold indifference, throw his application or submission at his face! Our people must realise that these are all serious evils and are blots on our social life and stand as barrier to all national progress. The tragedy of the situation is heightened when we find that this callousness and human unconcern coexists in millions of our people with much piety and religiosity! They go to places of worship, recite prayers, perform rituals or bathe in the holy rivers and can combine, with easy conscience, this religiosity with much evil. They have to learn afresh that true religion makes for character, human concern, dedicated service and work-efficiency. Where these virtues are present, there is spirituality; these are the fruits of true religion.

“Now a days it is often remarked: “Why to bring religion into politics?” This idea stems from a misunderstanding of our concept of religion, confusing it with the occidental idea of religion. The Western religious thoughts are the reaction of centuries of suffering at the hands of the priests and the church. To us religion is not a dogma but a comprehensive vision of life that would correlate and elevate all spheres of our social life and fulfill human life from all angles. It is the sap of our national tree, the life-breath of our national life.”

We should avoid politicalisation of religion and not religionisation of politics. True religion must form the core of true politics.

There will be no end to the problems and miseries of nations till spirituality becomes their prime mover, till the ruling classes really and truly become spiritual, till political power comes in the hands of spiritual persons. The idea that philosophers must be the rulers and directors of society had been practiced for long in our country because of our faith that the truths of spirit are ultimate and actual life has to be fashioned in their light.

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics, do not know what religion is” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Whereas in other countries, politicians and statesmen attract loyalty and allegiance of the people, in India on the other hand, even now, a spiritual personality alone for example Mahatma Gandhi, has been able to command the deepest and widest loyalty, respect and affection of the people even in the political field. We can purify politics of its traditional shortcomings, if we can infuse spirituality and moral tone into its working.

Now-a-days, politicians in their haste lay all blames for the evils of the society at the door of religion; and like the man in the story, wanting to kill the mosquito that sat on the friend’s forehead, they try to deal such heavy blows as would kill both the man and mosquito together. The present state of our society is so, not because of religion but because of politics.

No political system, no society can be healthy without unwavering sense of justice and moral values. This is the value called Dharma. It is a great irony that the word ‘religion’ has become an anathema to most of our present day politicians as it stands in the way of their physical and financial well-being at the cost of the people.

Previously there was religious fanaticism; now it is political. Fanatics waste three-fourth of their energy. They take up the most horrible notions and for those ideas thousands are ready to cut the throat of their brethren and deluge the country with blood. They become a sort of monomaniacs. It is the level-headed, calm, practical men who work.

Our politicians are suffering from a sort of bigotry; to them, all who do not agree or speak in the same language as they do, are false and bad as if they have taken the sole-monopoly of righteousness and public well-being.

“Superstition is great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Service minus bigotry should be our goal.”

In their intellectual conceit, the politicians do not only deny the right of every other man to think freely according to his own light, but dare to say that others who don’t agree with them are entirely wrong and they alone are right. They are like frogs in the well.

The truth of an upright man must be accepted on his own terms. Moreover, since characters vary, we must agree that all the beauties of human excellence may be fostered by beliefs which we do not share.

For our politicians, loving their own ideals and policies tantamount to hating every other idea. They must mix up with all and alienate none.

Every fanatic who gets up and denounces something can secure a following. It is very easy to break down anything but hard to build. These fanatics may do some good according to their light but will do much more harm in the long run. Instead of denouncing, we must go to the root of the problem, find out the cause and try to remove it. If the cause is removed, effect will be automatically removed also. Mere outcry will not produce any effect, instead it can produce misfortune.

Denunciation is not at all the way to do good. That there are evils in our society even a child can see. Only cursing, vilifying and abusing do not and cannot produce anything good. They have been tried for years without any result.

Many of our public workers are good, well-meaning men and women and their aims too are very laudable on certain points. But it is quite apparent that these 55 years of social and other reforms have produced no permanent or appreciable results. “Platform speeches have been made in millions, denunciations in volumes have been hurled upon the devoted head of our race and its civilization, and yet practically no result has been achieved; and what is the reason for that? The reason is not hard to find. It is in the denunciation itself.”

Swami Vivekananda said, ‘you must go down to the basis of a thing, to the very root of the matter. That is what I call radical reform. Put the fire there and let it burn upwards to make an Indian nation.’ When we all become possessed of this human passion, we shall be able to appreciate these utterances of Swamiji and shall start to live truly and find no time to experience the death of frustration.

Most of our modern political reforms have been inconsiderate imitation of the Westerners and are surely not made for us and therefore, are not so effective. We agree that we have to learn many lessons from outside; but the ideal should be growth, expansion and development on the national lines. We must, first of all try to keep intact our historically acquired character as a people.

Since independence our government has been working towards the goal of national development but through a socio-economic policy far removed from Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, influenced by two completely divergent western ideologies of capitalism and socialism (communism) while clearly distrusting the policies and ideologies of both. For the first forty five years or so in our leftward tilt, we tried to practice the latter in formulation of our socio-economic policies and programmes and though our rulers received temporary vociferous support and endorsement from the general public for the same but subsequently there arose doubts and widespread disenchantment among a large section of our people about the capacity and efficacy of this ideology in achieving our national goals of ending poverty of our people on one side and to check and stop all forms of human exploitations on the other. And this disenchantment has been further accentuated by an atmosphere of widespread corruption, nepotism and administrative inefficiency, resulting in much suffering to the common man.