Swamijis lectures shook the world, but failed to spur India

Swami Vivekananda-September 8, 2013, 8:59 pm By Saibal Gupta

It was 11 September, 1893 in Chicago. The Parliament of Religions was in session. It was not the 9/11 of destruction in USA, but the 9/11 of creation. Among the delegates was a young monk, handsome and resplendent in his saffron attire and turban, unknown, uninvited and penniless, who spent his first night in America in a wooden crate on the roadside. Rescued and invited to her home by a kind-hearted lady, he met people who arranged his participation as a delegate. Twice his name had been called to come to the podium, but he did not rise. The third call and he heard the loving voice of his Master Sri Ramakrishna: "Will you not rise? Will you not speak?" And he rose and delivered. "Sisters and Brothers of America, It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome, which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptanceI am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth." Like a great conqueror, he threw the spear straight to the heart of the territory he would conquer, the minds of the people. He had brought the

mother of all religions, no less. Did he think of Holy Mother Sarada, without whose blessings he refused to go abroad and who had told her children amid the hostility and turmoil of freedom movement to be careful, for she could see many white faces of her children in far off lands? She had accepted Muslim brigand Amjad as her son as dear to her as Swami Saradananda and served him food and cleaned afterwards with her own hand. In his lecture on 19 September 1893, Swami Vivekananda presented a paper on Hinduism. "To the Hindu, then, whole world of religions is only a traveling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goalIt is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything, the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna, I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there. And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find, throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy, any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others." In his final message on 27 September, he said "upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: Help and not Fight, Assimilation and not Destruction, Harmony and Peace and not Dissension." Once a devotee told the Holy Mother, Thakur came to establish unity of religions. Mother replied Thakur did not come with an agenda son. None of this trio came with any agenda; they came to give us the Universal Truth. Swamijis lectures were not to impress the West, but to remind mankind. It is difficult for us even to understand that. He wrote on 10 June 1898 to Mohammed Sarfaraz Husain of Naini Tal, "Whether we call it Vedantism or any ism, the truth is that Advaitism is the last word of religion and thought and the only position from which one can look upon all religions and sects with loveTherefore, I am firmly persuaded that without the help of practical Islam, theories of Vedantism, however fine and wonderful they may be, are entirely valueless to the vast mass of mankind. We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran. Mankind ought to be

taught that religions are but the varied expressions of ***the religion***, which is Oneness, so that each may choose the path that suits him best. For our own motherland, a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam Vedanta brain and Islam body is the only hope. I see in my minds eye the future perfect India rising out of this chaos and strife, glorious and invincible, with Vedanta brain and Islam body." Tears came to my eyes, how we could go so wrong! Scene after scene flashed in my mind. Congress Working Committee was meeting at Wardha Ashram; it was lunchtime and Muslim members came out on the veranda. The leaders of two communities were planning the struggle for freedom from British rule, but they could not eat together! When my uneducated grandma announced lunch in our East Bengal (now Bangladesh) rural home and food was carried from the kitchen, which was traditionally outside the living area, all Muslim people on the verandah scampered down to the field below so that their shadows did not fall on the food. As a boy, I accosted her decades later and she said apologetically "nobody told us it was wrong". Nobody told the politicians either. In 1939, following the resignation of Netaji, the Socialists and other Leftists left the Congress and the organisation became a pro-business group financed by Hindu business houses, specifically Birlas and Bajaj; why only they and not the Ispahanis and other Muslim business interests? Bifurcation of the business world added to everything else. On 16 August 1946, Muslim League launched Direct Action from Calcutta and the bloodbath started, spreading like wildfire, and engulfed the entire country and continued beyond Independence Day, taking more lives than the Second World War in Europe. Both communities fought fiercely after decades of non-violent struggle against Britain! After the departure of the British, border wars started and so did political games, both internal and international, with many parties and people with different agendas born out of greed on both sides of the divide. Was the destruction of the Babri Mosque the only way to establish Hindutva? It continues as a fetid sore. The Muslims worship looking west and Hindus worship looking east or north. Why we cannot build a back-toback temple and mosque complex? After all, a mosque was constructed

next to the Viswanath Temple at Varanasi by a Hindu convert to Islam, but the Lord continues in His glory. The result after sixty six years is a divided subcontinent riddled with hostility, poverty, dishonesty, corruption, rape and terrorism, with clever politicians playing their games. My sleep was broken, my dreams were gone. I could feel my face was wet with tears. Swamiji you may have conquered the world but you have failed to conquer us. You have changed minds in Chicago, even those who just casually peeped in at the Congress. Some of them silently worked to spread your word. We have used you, hung your portraits, carried them in processions, raised money in your name, and used that on material tasks that made us vain. Where is the Oneness, where is ***the religion***, where is the bringing of Vedanta from the forests to every household? Can that be done only by sermon from the pulpit? Where are the Rishis from yesteryear to make the link? Where is the conviction that God is approachable to every human being wherever he may be? It cannot be the same for everyone, but everyone gets the touch. Will you not be reborn as you promised and give us that firm conviction? The greed of nations is destroying the world. (The Statesman/ANN) The writer is a cardiac surgeon.