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Understanding Vivekananda

Much of Vivekanandas mystique rests on his perceived

liberality with respect to other faiths, says Jyotirmaya

Sharma, in Cosmic Love and Human Apathy: Swami

Vivekanandas restatement of religion (Harper).

There is a clear identification, he adds, between

Vivekananda and the view that religions might differ in

word, ritual, doctrine and emphasis but all faiths are

ultimately paths to the same God. In many of his public

pronouncements, he explicitly seeks to convey that his

message was one of peace and a united religion and not of antagonism.

Having studied comparative religions, he finds all faiths to have had thesame foundations as his own faith.

Going a step further, Vivekananda wants a plurality of faiths in the world to

suit a variety of contexts, elaborates the author. He notes that, in a world

constantly contending with religious strife and the violence that is the

inevitable consequence of such conflict, such words and thoughts can be

seductively reassuring. However, what disturbs the author is that

Vivekananda saw the plurality of faiths or sects being limited to the

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externals. Remove the externals and what will emerge is a universal faith

defined by Vivekananda, based entirely on his reading of the Vedanta. The

Vedantic ideal of Oneness and the Universal Soul would ultimately prevail.

Any critical evaluation of Vivekananda has to contend with scattered islands

of reasonableness periodically emerging in the vast ocean of a singular,

uncompromising and stridently Vedic-Vedantic vision, observes Sharma.

The staggering plurality of Indian religions, sects, rituals and customs

bewilders many outside India; and, to Vivekananda, this complexity is a

source of conflict, chaos and absence of clarity, says Sharma. It also was

an impediment in the way of fostering his political agenda of religious

nationalism as the basis for national unity. In dealing with the intractable

question of diversity, Vivekananda begins by acknowledging the diversity of

races, languages, manners and customs that had the potential for creating

more differences between two Indian races than between the European and

the Eastern races. Amidst this diversity and complexity, he identifies

religion as the common ground around which national unity could be built.

The first step towards the future of India, according to Vivekananda, was to

ensure unity of religion, bringing together the dualists, qualified monists,

and so forth, on the plank of common ideas, the author describes.

Provokes discussion.

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