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Vivekananda ReviewVOLUME 2 NUMBER 1 • FEBRUARY 2014

Vivekananda Review

In this first issue of Volume 2 of the Review, we begin with an article, which gives more information on the 1895 Toronto conference entitled the “Pan-American Congress of Reli-

gion and Education”. This conference was intended to be a follow-up of the Chicago “Parliament of Religions” conference of 1893. It is particularly interesting for us as Swami Vivekananda was ini-tially invited to speak. However, the opposition of local clergy forced the cancellation of the invitation and it seems that he did not visit Toronto after all. Rina Chakravarti has studied archival material and produced a coherent narrative of the circumstances surrounding this important event.

We also have an article that asks the fundamental question of what we mean by civilization. Swami Vivekananda made the startling statement that “Education has yet to be in the world, and civilization has begun nowhere yet.” He continued by saying that “Ninety nine decimal nine percent of the hu-man race is more or less savage even now.” Professor Ram Murty examines how despite a veneer of civilization, and despite much progress on the material side, the basic attitudes and perceptions leave a lot to be desired and suggest that humanity is still at an early stage in its march towards civilization.

The Katha Upanishad, one of the older of the Upanishads, contains magnificent insights into the nature of spirit (atman). Professor Balaji continues his study of infusing a Vedic perspective on Upanishadic thought. In his article, he discusses “the mysteries of realizing Brahman here and in this body”.

Swami Kripamayananda • Vedanta Society of Toronto, 120 Emmett Avenue, Toronto, ON, Canada M6M 2E6 • [email protected]

The Vivekananda ReviewSWAMI KRIPAMAYANANDA

Swami Kripamayananda is a monk of theRamakrishna Order and President of the Vedanta Society of Toronto.

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V. Kumar Murty – Chief EditorAndrea MacLeod – Layout Editor

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Published by the Vedanta Society of Toronto

VIVEKANANDA REVIEW

A bimonthly publication dedicated to the study of Vivekananda’s ideas

© Vedanta Society of Toronto, 2014

The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Vedanta Society of Toronto.

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Swami Vivekananda

FEBRUARY 2014 1

“When Swamiji went to America for the first time, I [Swami Turiyananda] accompanied him from Mt. Abu to Bombay. In the running train, Swamiji said to me, in all seriousness, ‘Well, all

that preparation that you see going on [in America] is for this [pointing to his own body]. My mind tells me so. You will see it verified at no distant date.”1

Swami Vivekananda’s arrival in Vancouver in July 1893 from India, his journey to Chicago through Canada to attend the Parliament of World’s Religions, and his spending one night at the Winnipeg train station on the way are well-documented. He mentions Canada and its weather, people and culture at different times in his con-versations or letters, but virtually nothing else is known about his presence or activities in the country. I always wondered whether the Swami ever came to Toronto, since we know he visited the Thousand Island Park, only 300 km east of the city. Miss Marie Louise Burke of San Francisco has done extensive research on Swamiji in North America, which is recorded in her six-volume work Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discover-ies, published by the Advaita Ashrama, 1986. Once I asked her whether she had come across any information regarding Swamiji’s presence in Canada. She referred me to two letters written by Swamiji to Mrs. Bull, one on May 28, 1895, and the other on July 13 of the same year. In the first letter, Swamiji mentions his invitation to “a parliament of religions”, to be held in Toronto on July 18, 1895; in the second, he mentiond the objections against him raised by the local clergy in Toronto. In this article, we investigate the following four questions:

1. Was there any religious conference in Toronto in July 1895 replicating the model of the Chicago Parliament of religions?

2. If there was, then where specifically did it take place in the city?

3. What religious organizations might have organized such an event?

4. Was there any media coverage of the event, if it took place, and would any of the coverage be available today?

I have divided this article, in three sections. The first section is a brief review of the Chicago affairs that generated the Toronto congress. The Toronto affairs are discussed in the second section: “Pan American Congress of Religion and Education in Toronto, 1895”. The third and

final section is called “Shaping Canada: Lessons from the past and Plans for the Future”.

I: Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893and its bearing on the Toronto event: a brief background

In the nineteenth century, the West experienced significant social and cultural changes after its large-scale industrial production and expan-sion into global markets. In Chicago, an extensive global meeting titled “World’s Columbian Exposition” was arranged to address this transfor-mation; it lasted from May 15 to October 28, 1893, in Chicago.

It was Charles Caroll Bonney, one of the organizers of the exposi-tion, who had the novel idea of including religion as part of the exposi-tion, to promote and facilitate intercultural, social, political and religious exchanges. The objective of the World Parliament of Religions was to unite all religions on the basis of Christianity’s Golden Rule2 while, at the same time, listening to what the representatives of other faiths had to say. The Parliament was held September 11-27. Mr. Bonney appointed Rev. John Henry Barrows of Chicago’s First Presbyterian Church as the

Pan-American Congress of Religion and Education in Toronto 1895

RINA CHAKRAVARTI

Its Bearing on Modern Times and New Observations from Canada

The Pavilion, Toronto: Venue for Pan-American Congress of Religion and Education in 1895

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head of the General Committee, while Paul Carus was a member of the Advisory committee. Invitations were sent out to thousands of religious leaders worldwide informing them of the plan for the Parliament of Re-ligions. Converted African Americans were included in the Parliament, though Native Americans were excluded.

While most of the responses were positive, some were not. For example, Rev. Barrow’s own church was not in favour of having the parliament whereas the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. disapproved, though with little impact.3

Similarly, the Archbishop of Canturbury raised some concerns. He said in one of his letters:

The difficulties which I myself feel are not questions of distance and convenience, but rest on the fact that the Christian religion is the one religion {.} I do not understand how that religion can be regarded as a member of a Parliament of Religions without assum-ing the equality of the other intended members and the parity of their position and claims. 4

In spite of an apprehensive beginning, however, the Parliament of Religions turned out to be one of the largest and best-attended events of its kind in history. The impact of this historic event is well-re-corded. It was an impressive gathering of delegates rep-resenting various religions from around the world. Among the speakers, Swami Vivekananda is said to have left the most enduring mark. Swamiji’s appreciation of the parliament is expressed in the last session of the Chicago event, where he said,

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that 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.”5

Paul Carus was highly impressed by the whole event as well. He writes:

The Parliament of Religions, which sat in Chicago from September 11 to September 27, was a great sur-

prise to the world. When the men who inaugurated it invited representatives of all the great religions of the earth to meet in conference, their plan was looked upon with misgiving, if not with ridicule. The feasibility and the advisability of their undertak-ing were doubted. The greatest and most powerful churches, it was said, would not be represented. … In spite of all these doubts and fears, the Parliament of Religions was convened, and it proved an extraor-dinary success. …The Parliament of Religions is un-doubtedly the most noteworthy event of this decade. …A holy intoxication overcame the speakers as well as the audience; and no one can conceive how impressive the whole proceeding was, unless he him-self saw the eager faces of the people and imbibed the enthusiasm that enraptured the multitudes. 6

He continues:Whether or not the Parliament of Religions is

repeated, whether or not its work will be continued, the fact remains that this congress at Chicago will exert a lasting influence upon the religious intelli-gence of mankind.7

In 1894 Swamiji wrote a letter to the Maharaja of Khetri about the Parliament, in which he commended its broad, inclusive, mutually respectful vision:

What a wonderful achievement was that World’s Fair at Chicago! And that wonderful Parliament of Religions where voices from every corner of the earth expressed their religious ideas! I was also allowed to present my own ideas through the kindness of Dr. Barrows and Mr. Bonney. Mr. Bonney is such a wonderful man! Think of that mind that planned and carried out with great success that gigantic undertaking, and he, no clergyman, a lawyer, presiding over the dignitaries of all the churches ... 8

”“If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has

proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world,

and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character.

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After the great success of the Parliament, a local committee was formed under Mr. Bonney’s initiative and direction to continue the new movement named The World’s Religious Parliament Extension, even though some continued to feel that the concept of the World’s Parliament of Religions was actually harmful and needed to be rectified.

II: Pan-American Congress of Religion and Education in Toronto, 1895

In his book Catalyst for Controversy, Harold Henderson mentions the “Religious Parliament Extension,” which was to be launched in a gather-ing in Chicago in January, 1895, with the aim of holding more Religious Parliaments in future. But this did not quite succeed. He writes:

The vagueness that hampered the extension on occasions like this alternated with some unpleasant exclusionism at other post parliament gatherings.9

As might be surmised from the quotation below, the reason for organizing one such meeting in Toronto reflects such deviant consider-ation. In all likelihood, Paul Carus might have been the one to have rec-ommended Swami Vivekananda’s name to the organizers of the congress in Toronto. as we gather from Henderson’s writing in his book:

The sponsors of the Pan American Congress of Religion and Education (Toronto 18-25 July 1895) were reluctant to admit any non-Western religion and adamant about not allowing Vivekananda to speak. Carus worked behind the scenes to get the Hindu in while maintaining a positive view of the event in public. ‘Personally, I do not agree with Vivekananda, either in his religious views or his general aspect of life,’ Carus wrote to the Toronto organizer Rev. S. Sherin on 8 June, 1895. ‘I am in many respects an-tagonistic to him, but it is my sincere opinion that it is our moral duty to listen to our antagonists…. The Religious Parliament of Chicago was a triumph of Christianity because Christians called the Parliament and listened patiently to all kinds of antagonistic opinions…. To be hospitable to antagonistic views is a symptom of strength; whenever people fear to have an adversary expresses his opinions, there you may be sure something is wrong. It is a symptom of weakness.’ (1895a 4645). The Toronto clergy preferred weakness.10

It is clear from this correspondence that Paul Carus tried to con-vince the organizers in Toronto to have Swamiji share his thoughts in the congress; however, it is not clear whether he initiated the idea of inviting Swamiji to speak in Toronto. It certainly is not clear at all why Carus would consider Swamiji to be an antagonist after having made the following observations, which incorporate Swamiji’s ideas as expressed in the Parliament:

Truth has a wonderful peculiarity: it is inexhaust-ible, and it, likewise, demands a constantly renewed application. …and the ultimate aim of religion is to eliminate self and let man become an embodiment of

truth, an incarnation of God.We must welcome the light from whatever source it comes, and we must hail the truth wherever we find it. There is but one religion, the religion of truth. There is but one piety, it is the love of truth. There is but one morality, it is the earnest desire of leading a life of truth. And the religion of the future can only be the Religion of Truth11

There must have been some invitation from Paul Carus for Swamiji to participate in the Toronto Congress, for on May 28, 1895, Swamiji expressed his interest in attending the congress while mentioning some financial constraints. Swamiji responds to Paul Carus on May 28, 1895 (it is dated 28 June), 12 from New York:

Dr. Paul Carus in LaSalle Ill

Dear Sir,I am just now in receipt of your letter and will be very happy to join the religious Congress at Toronto. Only, as you are well aware, the financial means of a “Bhikshu” [a Hindu or Buddhist monk] are very limited. I will be only too glad to do anything in my power to help you and wait further particulars and directions. Hoping to hear from you soon and thanking you very much for your great sympathy with Buddhistic India. I remain ever fraternally your,

Vivekananda

On the same day, Swamiji writes to Mrs. Ole Bull, giving her the news of his invitation to speak in Toronto on July 18, 1895. Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Bull on May 28:13

Dear Mother,Your last kind letter to hand. This week will be the last of my classes. I am going next Tuesday with Mr. Leggett to Maine. He has a fine lake and a forest there. I will be two or three weeks there. From thence I go to the Thousand Islands. Also I have an invitation to speak at a parliament of religions in Toronto Canada on July 18th. I will go there from Thousand Islands and return back.So far everything is going well with me.Ever your grateful sonVivekanandaPS My regards and love to your daughter and pray for her recovery

On May 31, 1895, Paul Carus expressed his happiness at Swamiji’s acceptance of the invitation to attend the congress in Toronto, and also gave him hope for some financial assistance. Paul Carus wrote to Swamiji on May 31, 1895:

My dear Sir,Your letter was received and I am very glad to hear that you will join the Congress. I at once advised the leaders of the Congress of your acceptance. Con-


cerning the financial question, I wrote to Dr. Smith and have been told that they have a small fund from which they can pay the expenses of a few speak-ers. I shall at once communicate your address to Dr. Smith and you will hear from him directly. I intend to visit the Congress and shall be very glad to meet you again.Yours very truly,Paul Carus14

In June 1895, Swamiji expresses his happiness in the prospect of meeting with all again in Toronto. (This must have been written on a date earlier than June 8, 1895.) Swamiji wrote to Paul Carus from Miss Dutcher’s cottage in the Thousand Island Park in June (?) of 1895:

Dear Doctor,I am in this place now and had to change some of my plans on account of the Toronto Congress. I am therefore not quite sure whether I will be able to come to Oak Island Conference. It is very possible, however, that I will be able to do so. I also hope Mr. [Charles Carroll] Bonney will come. He is a noble, noble soul — one who sincerely wishes the fellowship of all humanity. Is it not true, Dr., that Mr. Bonney, as I have every reason to think, originated the plan of the parliament of religions? I will certainly try my best to come. Thanking you very much for your kindness, I remainEver yours in the Lord of Compassion,VIVEKANANDAP.S. Will you kindly inform me what lines of thought you want me to take?15

On June 8, Paul Carus wrote two letters, one to Swamiji and the other to Rev. Sherin of Toronto. The first of these conveyed the nega-tive decision of Toronto clergies to Swamiji. The second was a renewed request to Sherin to reconsider the decision. (cf Henderson’s quote above). Even after receiving a negative response, Carus continued trying to pursue the cause while he writes to Swamiji apprising him of the situ-ation. He appears to be still hopeful in having requested Mr. Bonney to influence the organizers. His letter to Swamiji is as follows

Swami Vivekananda

My dear Sir,Mr. Sherin of Toronto writes to me as follows: “The clergymen of this city were unanimous in objecting to have Swami Vivekananda.” This, of course, makes it more than doubtful that whether we shall have the pleasure of meeting at Toronto. I have taken all steps to change the minds of the Pan American Congress Committee, and have requested Mr. Bonney to write them in your behalf. I hope that we shall succeed in the end. In the meantime I wish to let you know how the matters stand, so that you may be prepared for the worst.With Kind regards,

Yours very truly,Paul Carus16

The minds of the Toronto clergies, however, did not change.The organizers of Toronto Congress were evidently not ready to

accept Swami Vivekananda’s concept of assimilation, acceptance and harmony in the sense of unity in religious diversity, in Canada. The mandate of the Toronto congress was perhaps only to dispel the sectar-ian differences by focusing on the common Christian values among the people of both Americas.

On July 13 [post marked July 11], 1895, Swamiji writes to Mrs. Ole Bull the latest regarding the Toronto Congress from Miss Dutcher’s cot-tage in Thousand Island Parks, N.Y., after receiving the letter from Paul Carus. He writes:

DEAR MOTHER, The shirts arrived yesterday; they are nice and fit me well. Everybody liked them. Landsberg arrived this morning with a picture of Shri Ramakrishna.The Toronto affair has fallen through because the clergymen objected to a heathen. There is one invita-tion from the Christian Union of Oak Beach. I do not know whether I will go there.As I intend to go to Chicago, in August, I ought to give to the people here all the time I can. I do not know yet the exact date when I start [for Europe] — but somewhere at the end of August, I am sure. Landsberg sends his love to all the rest. Ever yours in love and gratitude,VIVEKANANDA17

Like the U.S., Canada is a nation of immigrants. The founder im-migrants came to Canada from Britain, France and other European coun-tries and brought the tenets of their practising faiths with them. Their religious affiliations were predominantly Christian, split into denomina-tions such as Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist, each with its respective doctrines, traditions and rituals. Native Spiritual-ity was very much in existence but not officially recognized as a religion. Neither was it included in the Chicago parliament, as mentioned earlier.

Churches of the various denominations existed in Toronto in 1895. Thinking that some of their present-day archives might have a record of the congress, I started my search by calling some major churches, such as the United Church of Canada, Archdiocese of Toronto, and some oth-ers, that might have been present at, or participated in, that conference. The only positive response I could gather was from the Anglican Church archive, confirming that they only found mention of an event known as “Pan American Congress of Religion and Education” in one of their reports of the time. The reference states that the Anglican church was not well represented there. This information provided the actual title of the Toronto congress of 1895.

Among the contemporary press coverage I sought out, this event was mentioned in prominent newspapers such as the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Evening Sun and New York Times. ‘Representatives of all denominations’ were present there according to Newfoundland Evening Sun (Toronto) of August 14, 1895. The New York Times of July 18 reports: “The Pan American Congress of Religion and Education was

FEBRUARY 2014 5

formally opened this afternoon at the Horticultural Gardens Pavilion.18 Numerous distinguished visitors have arrived to participate in the pro-gramme, and more are expected daily. …..Mayor Warring Kennedy gave a cordial address of welcome on behalf of the city at the opening meet-ing this afternoon.” There is mention of one Hebrew, named Lazarus, formerly of Toronto, who was one of the speakers.

S. Sherin, the Secretary, and Samuel G. Smith, the President of the congress, sent out an official announcement (undated) in 1895 inviting the accredited delegates from municipal governments, churches and charitable organizations. This meeting was open to the public. Part of that announcement reads,

A very wide demand for such a gathering has been made for years, and this received new impulse in the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The object of this congress, however; will be seen at once to be of an entirely different nature.19

The above announcement suggests that the gathering in Toronto was to be a follow-up of the Chicago chapter for the ecumenical purpose of promoting unity among dominant Christian groups. This also explains why Paul Carus’s appeal to the Toronto organizers to invite Swamiji to the congress failed. The congress thus ended up as a sectarian attempt to repeat ‘The World’s Religious Parliament Extension.’ It indeed was well-advertised in the media prior to the date, though attendance was not as expected, according to the contemporary media reports.

III: Shaping Canada: lessons from the past, plans for the future

The development of the hundred years that followed the congress gives us a glimpse of a different story that is unfolding. Toronto and Canada as a whole are home for communities from around the world with their diverse ethno-religious and cultural backgrounds. It seems no longer possible for any group to remain exclusive. It has thus become important to embrace diversity in a pluralistic society. Propagating inclusiveness, acceptance, understanding and harmony is now essential. The interfaith organizations in America are providing forums for generating under-standing among various faiths through meaningful dialogues and activi-ties in their own distinctive ways.

The indifference and exclusiveness in the congress of 1895 notwith-standing, Canada has come a long way in understanding and accepting diversity. Canada has come to adopt the concepts of Unity in Diversity, Assimilation and not Destruction, Harmony and Peace and not Dissen-sion, the very words Swami Vivekananda uttered in his last speech in Chicago but which unfortunately was not able to articulate in person in the Canada of 1895.

Swami Vivekananda’s own words may explain why his thoughts have spread to Canada in spite of his physical absence:

This mind is a part of the universal mind. Each mind is connected with every other mind. And each mind, wherever it is located, is in actual communication with the whole world. …Distance makes no differ-ence… The mind is universal. Your mind, my mind, all these little minds, are fragments of that universal mind, little waves in the ocean; and on account of this continuity, we can convey our thoughts directly

to one another.20

No wonder Swami Vivekananda says:Our bodies, our virtues, our intellect, and our spiri-tuality, all these are continuously influencing others; and so, conversely, we are being influenced by them. This is going on all around us.21

What Swami Vivekananda could not communicate in person — his universal message — seems nonetheless to have taken hold. His physical absence may not posit a total block in transmission and understanding of ideas. The dimension of secular spirituality where he not only embraces the other faiths in their journey on existential growth, but also accommo-dates atheism in its proper spiritual moorings, needs a special attention for study and inspiration today. Such broad-based spirituality, he thinks, is instrumental to character building.

Swami Vivekananda said in Chicago, in his last session:…The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. 22

While propagating respect and not just tolerance in the name of religion, he had said in his first address in Chicago:

Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecu-tions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.23

Contemporary progressive and inclusive developments in Ontario and Canada include the formation of bodies relating to interfaith under-standing at various levels, starting from public institutions and extend-ing to religious organizations. In March 1972, the Ontario Provincial Interfaith Committee on Chaplaincy (OPIFCC) was formed to care for people of various faiths in publicly funded institutions. On Dec. 3, 1992, a memorandum was signed to establish a unique partnership between the three ministries of the government of Ontario (Community and Social Services, Correctional Services and Health Services) and the faith groups. 24 A Resource document on Education and Religion in Ontario Public Schools was published in 1994 by the Ontario Ministry of Educa-tion and Training. The following is an excerpt from the document:

Education about religion can help to reduce barriers of ignorance between groups and to increase their mutual understanding and respect. Studying different faiths and getting to know their practitioners are


important means of acquiring insight into people of different backgrounds. Greater comprehension of similarities and differences gives students the oppor-tunity to develop values and attitudes that contribute to social harmony, such as appreciation of diversity, respect for those of different backgrounds, and a sense of community.25

The Ontario School System emphasizes the importance of unbiased and inclusive schools in which all students are welcomed and respected. One of the Ontario Ministry of Education documents (2008) suggests:

‘Character development is the deliberate effort to nurture the universal attributes upon which schools and communities find consensus. They bind us together across the lines that often divide us in society… Excellence in education includes character development. Through character, we find common ground.’26

In Swamiji’s words: We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.27

Also:The ideal of all education, all training, should be this man-making. But, instead of that, we are always trying to polish up the outside. What use in polishing up the outside when there is no inside? The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The man who influences, who throws his magic, as it were, upon his fellow-beings, is a dynamo of power, and when that man is ready, he can do anything and ev-erything he likes; that personality put upon anything will make it work28

On Feb. 19, 2013, the Canadian government opened its Office of Religious Freedom:

‘Canada is recognized globally for its leadership on human rights issues, and takes principled positions to promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance throughout the world.In Canada’s view, freedom of religion or belief, in-cluding the ability to worship in peace and security, is a universal human right. Through the Office of Re-ligious Freedom, Canada will continue to work with like-minded partners to speak out against egregious violations of freedom of religion, denounce violence against human-rights defenders and condemn attacks on worshippers and places of worship around the world.’29

All the above are certainly admirable undertakings; however, only with proper implementation can these programs succeed. Mere words,

even in legal terms, may fail to deliver. Swamiji emphasized the impor-tance of paying attention to the means of work as well as to its end.30

Inspiration from Swami’s words may help us reflect on the need of the day:

I would ask you for the time being to come out of the network of words. We have all been hearing from childhood of such things as love, peace, charity, equality, and universal brotherhood; but they have become to us mere words without meaning, words which we repeat like parrots, and it has become quite natural for us to do so. We cannot help it. Great souls, who first felt these great ideas in their hearts, manufactured these words; and at that time many understood their meaning. Later on, ignorant people have taken up those words to play with them and made religion a mere play upon words, and not a thing to be carried into practice. 31

With these inspiring words from Swamiji, let us imbibe the spirit of unity in diversity while paying attention to the means of man-making and character-building education.

Rina Chakravarti • c/o Vedanta Society of Toronto, 120 Emmett Avenue, Toronto, ON, Canada M6M 2E6 • [email protected]

NOTES1 Spiritual Talks, pp. 245-246.2 A commandment based on Jesus’ words during the Sermon on the Mount; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12).3 The Parliament of World’s Religions, Volume 1, pp.18-19.4 Ibid, pp. 20-22.5 Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (hereafter referred to as CW), Volume 1, p. 24.6 The Dawn of a New Era and Other Essays, pp. 16-17.7 Ibid, p. 18.8 CW, Volume 6, pp. 249-250.9 Catalyst for Controversy: Paul Carus of Open Court, p. 71.10 Ibid, pp. 71-72.11 The Dawn of a New Era and Other Essays, pp. 19-20.12 CW, Volume 9, p. 60.13 Ibid, pp. 59-60.14 Courtesy of Ms Marie Louis Burke15 Ibid, p. 61.16 Courtesy of Ms. Marie Louis Burke17 Ibid, p. 64. 18 The Pavilion Hall was built in 1879; it had a glass conservatory. It was used for concerts and social events. The Hall burned down in 1902 and was replaced in 1910 by the Palm House, the existing conservatory.19 ‘Varia Collection’. Box 2, Folder 196. Washington D.C; Georgetown University, Special Collections Division.20 CW, Volume 2 pp, 12-13.21 Ibid, p. 13.22 CW, Volume 1, p. 24.

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23 Ibid, p. 4.24 www.omc.ca/memorandum (unfortunately this has recently been changed)25 Resource Guide Document, p. 11.26 Finding Common Ground: Character Development in Ontario Schools K-12, p.3.27 CW, Volume 5, p. 342.28 CW, Volume 2, p. 5.29 http://www.international.gc.ca/religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/minister_ministre.aspx30 CW, Volume 2, p. 1.31 Ibid, p. 15.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The First Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, Spiritual Talks, AdvaitaAshrama, Mayavati, 1983.

Rev. John H. Barrows, The Parliament of World’s Religions, Volume 1,Parliament Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.

Paul Carus, The Dawn of a New Era and Other Essays, The Open Court,London, 1899.

Harold Henderson, Catalyst for Controversy: Paul Carus of Open Court,Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 1993.

Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, Resource Guide Document,Toronto, Ontario, 1994.

Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, Finding Common Ground:Character Development in Ontario Schools K-12, 2008.

Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati,Volumes 1-8, 1989, Volume 9, 1997.

The World’s Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labour.

My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realised it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.

Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impos-sible hope.” Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.

Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a

Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the ex-clusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that 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 Dissen-sion.”

Delivered on September 27, 1893(from: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1 pp. 23-24)

Swami Vivekananda’s Address at the Final Session of the Parliament of Religions

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What is Civilization?M. RAM MURTY

In his “First Public Lecture in the East”, Swami Vivekananda said, “But education has yet to be in the world, and civilization — civiliza-tion has begun nowhere yet.”1 This is quite a dramatic statement and raises the question as to what Vivekananda meant by “education” and

“civilization”2. It is the purpose of this essay to explore these two ideas in the context of historical developments and to highlight the role of educa-tors in the development of human civilization. As we move into the 21st century, it is incumbent on the intellectual leadership to show us the way out of total annihilation. This is no mere poetic fancy. The survival of the human race depends on it. As the great historian Arnold Toynbee wrote:

In the present age, the world has been united on the material plane by Western technology. But this Western skill has not only “annihilated distance”; it has armed the peoples of the world with weapons of devastating power at a time when they have been brought to point-blank range of each other without yet having learnt to know and love each other.3

After making his shocking statement, Vivekananda continued by say-ing that “Ninety-nine decimal nine percent of the human race is more or less savage even now.”4 In January, 1900, in Los Angeles, he delivered a lecture titled “Hints on Practical Spirituality”, in which he explained the essential ideas of Patanjali and his psychoanalytic approach to world religions. In that lecture, Vivekananda related what the American philosopher Ingersoll had said to him: “Fifty years ago, you would have been hanged in this coun-try if you had come to preach. You would have been burnt alive or you would have been stoned out of the villages.”5 Although these words were uttered more than a century ago, things have not really changed much. Since 1900, the world has seen two horrific world wars, and history is replete with episodes of massive genocide and extermination of races stretching across many continents. A cursory look at the daily newspaper is enough to convince anyone that Vivekananda’s statements are not an exaggeration. Humanity has not progressed much in the march of evolution.

We seem to be equating ‘civilization’ with a mercantile outlook. In a letter to his brother, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “Is this then the end of the long march of human civilization, this spiritual suicide, this quiet petrification of the soul into matter? Was the successful businessman that grand culmina-tion of manhood toward which evolution was striving? After all, if the scien-tific view is correct, why not? An evolution that started with the protoplasm and flowered in the orangutan and chimpanzee, may well rest satisfied with having created hat, coat and trousers, the British aristocrat and the American capitalist.”6

So what exactly is civilization? On March 25, 1896, Vivekananda delivered a lecture on Vedanta philosophy and in the question period that followed, he gave the following definition. “This universe is simply a gym-nasium in which the soul is taking exercise; and after these exercises we

become gods. So the value of everything is to be decided by how far it is a manifestation of God. Civilization is the manifestation of the divinity in man.”7 From this excerpt, we begin to get a hint of what Vivekananda meant by the word “civilization.” In a letter dated March 3, 1894, from Chicago and written to “Kidi”, Vivekananda summarised the essence of Indian phi-losophy. In that letter, reprinted in Volume 4 of the Complete Works, we find some amplification of these ideas. He wrote, “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. Religion is the manifestation of the divin-ity already in man.”8 Jesus taught, “Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”9 Thus we can safely infer that by “perfection”, Vivekananda meant “divinity”. This leads to a remarkable equation which has some sur-prising corollaries. Earlier, he equated civilization with the manifestation of the divinity of man. This passage equates religion with civilization. So if civilization has not yet begun, then neither has religion. Not only that; from the same letter to Kidi, we see that Vivekananda equated “perfection” with “divinity” and so we may deduce: education = religion = civilization. And the astounding corollaries are that none of these have yet begun!

In his letter, Vivekananda gives us some idea of what he meant by the word ‘religion’. He wrote,

We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance, the difference between soul and soul is owing to the differ-ence in density of these layers of clouds. We believe that this is the conscious or unconscious basis of all religions, and that this is the explanation of the whole history of human progress either in the material, intel-lectual, or spiritual plane – the same Spirit is manifest-ing through different planes.10

Thus, religion, as it is practised, is simply an “unconscious or con-scious” expression of the search for “the same Spirit – manifesting through different planes.” Vivekananda continues: “We believe that it is the duty of every soul to treat, to think of, and behave to other souls as such, i.e. as Gods, and not hate or despise, or vilify, or try to injure them by any manner or means. This is the duty not only of the Sanyasin [the monk] but of all men and women.”11 A corollary of this is the golden rule: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Religion, as it is practised, is merely a bundle of social customs and often pits nation against nation, creed against creed, race against race. Sadly, this is the history of humanity. In the same letter, Vivekananda diagnoses this malady: “Social laws were created by economic conditions under the sanction of religion. The terrible mistake of religion was to interfere in social matters... [What] we want is that religion should not be a social reformer, but we insist at the same time that society has no right to become a religious law-giver.”12

In the opening pages of his masterpiece on Raja Yoga, Vivekananda summarised Indian philosophy as follows:

FEBRUARY 2014 9

”“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by

controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or

psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free.

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these — and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.13

Here we find a clear definition of religion and implicitly civilization. They are measured by how far we have progressed in the manifestation of divinity. A cursory look at history shows that we have not even progressed in the manifestation of humanity. What is the cause of this?

Human history shows that the most diabolical idea ever conceived is that of racial superiority. History is replete with episodes of coloniza-tion, slavery and extermination of so-called “inferior races.” Racism took on a scientific garb in the post-Darwinian period and theories of eugenics emerged to justify imperialism, slavery and extermination. Surprisingly, these theories were supplied by the philosophers and thinkers of the age. For instance, Voltaire wrote,

It is a serious question among them whether the Afri-cans are descended from monkeys or whether the mon-keys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beau-tify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for every-thing.14

This is from a man who is considered to be one of the principal philosophers in the “age of enlight-enment.”

Schopenhauer wrote,The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peo-ples, the ruling caste, or race, is fairer in colour than the rest, and has, therefore, certainly immigrated, for example, the Brahmins, the Inca, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that ne-cessity is the mother of invention, because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual pow-ers, and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms, were brought about by the climate. This they had to do

in order to make up for the parsimony of nature, and out of it all came their high civilization.15

The fact that Schopenhauer singles out the Hindus and the Egyptians is significant, for at the time, he wrote that it was becoming increasingly clear from reports of archeologists excavating in India and Egypt that these nations were rooted in advanced civilizations and cultures. This was conve-niently explained by the “Aryan model,” which proposed that ancient India and Egypt were colonized by an “Aryan migration”. This model was ampli-fied and expanded by the historians, philosophers and scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries and thus, this view of world history acquired academic sanction. This is not an exaggeration.

It is a common belief with both the educated and the uneducated that “everything began with the Greeks.” We were all taught to believe that mathematics, science and philosophy all began in ancient Greece and this has led to a Eurocentric world view. The truth of the matter is that many cul-tures and civilizations have contributed to the development of mathematics, science and philosophy, and this fact must be acknowledged and amplified. Some historians and scholars, to counter the Eurocentric view of history, have posited an “Afro-centric view” and have offered much evidence for this viewpoint. This has generated a great deal of controversy. For instance, Cheikh Anta Diop had proposed the theory that all of humanity was born in Kenya and that this was a black race that migrated to other parts of the world. After countless millennia, the pigmentation of their skin changed to

adapt to the colder climates where there was less sunlight. This resulted in the lighter-skinned races. This theory has now been supported by the latest scientific evidence. In a recent article in Nature by I. Olalde et al., there is a report of a genetic analysis of two ancient European archaeological speci-mens, nicknamed “La Brana 1” and “La Brana 2”, from 7,000 years ago that revealed they had dark skin. Perhaps, Adam and Eve were black.

What I would like to propose is the thesis that modern civilization arose from a varied number of sources, the primary ones being African and Asian. This is not an original idea. It has been proposed by others before and has met with much criticism and controversy. But the latest researches in science are supporting the thesis that Greek civilization had roots in Africa and Asia.

In his three-volume epic work Black Athena, Martin Bernal argues that classical civilization, which we normally attribute to the Greeks, had Afro-Asiatic roots. Indeed, his first volume is titled “The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985” and his central thesis is that prior to the 18th


century, historians and scholars generally agreed about the varied sources of modern civilization and its indebtedness to ancient Egypt, Sudan, Ethio-pia, India, China and the Middle East. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, at the height of European colonialism, a diabolical idea emerged regarding racial superiority. This idea fit snugly with post-Darwinian thought and led to the justification of both slavery and colonialism. Prior to the two world wars, we can see in the writings of many historians and philosophers the emergence of an anti-Semitic world view in which the contributions of the earlier civilizations (primarily the Egyptians and Phoenicians) had been ex-punged and the world presented with a pristine world view of the “Greek miracle.” But then, new discoveries in “British India” of highly advanced ancient civilizations and cultures, as well as the new revelations regarding the Sanskrit language, led to the theory of “Aryan invasion” of India, and slowly, as the origin of the Aryans was pushed back to Northern Europe, the “Aryan model” of world history emerged. In the first volume of Black Athena, Bernal writes,

There is also no doubt that the contemporary passion for India drew European attention to the Aryan invasions of the subcontinent from the north. It took very little imagination to transpose from these invasions – which are attested in Indian tradition -- to Greece, where there were no extant records of such a conquest.16

This replaced the “Ancient model” which recognized the multi-na-tional and multi-cultural contributions to modern civilization and thus the Eurocentric world view was galvanized into place. In his work, Bernal pro-poses a “revised Ancient model” to replace the current model. This leads one to adopt a “multi-cultural world view,” which is more consonant with the evidence.

Bernal writes,If I am right in urging the overthrow of the Aryan Mod-el and its replacement by the Revised Ancient one, it will be necessary not only to rethink the fundamental bases of ‘Western Civilization’ but also to recognize the penetration of racism and ‘continental chauvinism’ into all our historiography, or philosophy of writing history. The Ancient Model had no major ‘internal’ deficiencies, or weaknesses in explanatory power. It was overthrown for external reasons. For 18th and 19th-century Romantics and racists it was simply in-tolerable for Greece, which was seen not merely as the epitome of Europe but also as its pure childhood, to have been the result of the mixture of native Europe-ans and colonizing Africans and Semites. Therefore the Ancient Model had to be overthrown and replaced by something more acceptable.17

According to Bernal, the Ancient Model is that Greece had been great-ly influenced by Africa (notably Egypt) and Asia and that this is recorded in the writings of Aeschylus, Euripides, Herodotus and others.18 This model was accepted and acknowledged by European academics until the middle of the 18th century, at which time there was a deliberate re-writing of history. “In the new period of systematic racism,” Bernal writes, “the eighteenth-century image of the Greeks changed progressively from that of intermedi-aries who had transmitted some part of the civilization and wisdom of the

“East” to the “West” into that of the very creators of civilization.”19 Bernal proceeds to document how this academic dishonesty of the 18th-century historians and philosophers conspired with imperial interests to secure and consolidate power and wealth for the empire. To give some specific instanc-es, the great empiricist of the British enlightenment David Hume wrote,

I am apt to suspect negroes and in general all other spe-cies of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of whites, such as the ancient Ger-mans, and present Tartars, have still something emi-nent about them, in their valour, form of government or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen in so many countries and ages if nature had not made an original distinction be-tween these breeds of men.20

James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, wrote his ten-volume His-tory of British India in 1818 and this became required reading for anyone going to India as an agent of the British Empire. Though he had never been to India, and though all his “information” was from garbled and biased ac-counts of Europeans returning from India, he wrote with characteristic ar-rogance and cocksure certainty passages such as the following:

Should we say that the civilization of the people of Hindustan, and that of the people of Europe, during the feudal ages, are not far from equal, we shall find upon a close inspection, that the Europeans were superior, in the first place, . . . in point of manners and character, the manliness and courage of our ancestors, compared with the slavish and dastardly spirit of the Hindus, place them in an elevated rank.21

In his work, Bernal discusses various factors that motivated Mill to write his history. As a result of this work, he and John Stuart Mill both be-came high officials in the East India Company. But apart from the economic reason for the project, what, Bernal asks, was the psychological reason be-hind it?

Clearly, what attracted him was not India itself but the British activities on the subcontinent. In this regard it is interesting to note that in May 1804 his Literary Journal contained a review of two volumes entitled Indian Rec-reations by William Tennant, a chaplain who had spent many years in India. Both the author and the reviewer were thoroughly disparaging about Indians, who, ac-cording to them, “had no history” and for whom Brit-ish rule was a liberation. The newly established dogma that only Europeans were capable of having “histories,” alone necessitated Mill’s title History of British India.22

What follows are a few more examples illustrating the prevailing racial attitudes:

Thomas Henry Huxley, the great scientist and philosopher of the 19th century, wrote in 1871 that “No rational man, cognizant of the facts, be-

FEBRUARY 2014 11”“If education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man, and civilization is measured by the extent to which we have given expression to this divinity, then it follows that civilization must be measured at least by our expression of humanity.

lieves that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. . . . The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins.”23

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln said,I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people, and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and po-litical equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the posi-tion of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favour of having the superior position as-signed to the white race.24

Of course, Lincoln goes on to say that the negro is his equal “in the right to eat bread”!

Thus the philosophers and historians of the 18th and 19th centuries contributed in a fundamental way to the expansion and consolidation of imperialism and the enslavement of colored races around the world. With such luminaries at the helm, it would be no exaggeration to say that this dia-bolical paradigm of race erupted in the two world wars of the 20th century. Bernal writes,

The paradigm of ‘races’ that were intrinsically unequal in physical and mental endowment was applied to all human studies, but especially to history. It was now considered undesirable, if not disastrous, for races to mix. To be creative, a civilization needed to be ‘ra-cially pure’. Thus it became increasingly intolerable that Greece — which was seen by the Romantics not merely as the epitome of Europe but also as its pure childhood — could be the result of the mixture of na-tive Europeans and colonizing Africans and Semites.25

Given the pernicious history of racism, we can well understand why

Vivekananda would write that civilization has not yet begun.The challenges of the present must be viewed as opportunities for hu-

manity. If our history has been marred by violence, we must counter that with non-violence. This was an impressive underlying theme of the 20th century in which countless spiritual personalities in many countries and cul-tures arose to teach us the way of non-violence, beginning with Mahatma Gandhi. In his autobiography, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Gandhi was able to mobilize and galvanize more people in his lifetime than any other person in the history of this world. And just with a little love and understanding goodwill and a refusal to co-operate with an evil law, he was able to break the backbone of the British Empire. This, I think was one of the significant things that ever happened in the history of the world.”26

Even after Gandhi, the problem of racial prejudice and inequality ex-ists. The challenge of the 21st century is to break out of these racist para-digms and build a new planetary civilization in which all races and nations participate. We are far from this ideal since we are still trapped by the walls of racial prejudice. However, we have made some infinitesimal progress through the struggles of spiritual giants like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and this gives us hope. Still, more work needs to be done.

Almost a century ago, Rabindranath Tagore had identified this plan-etary problem and warned that humanity must come together and build a new world or face annihilation:

The whole world is becoming one county through sci-entific facility. And the moment is arriving when you also must find a basis of unity which is not political. If India can offer to the world her solution, it will be a contribution to humanity. There is only one history – the history of mankind. All national histories are merely chapters to the larger one.27

Examining Indian history from ancient times, Tagore concluded that from time immemorial, India has been trying to solve the problem of racial harmony now confronting the planet. Related to race is the question of cul-ture and multiculturalism. Several European countries have declared that multiculturalism doesn’t work and have initiated laws to that effect. There is quite a bit of tension on this question around the world. We must search for a practical solution. In a lecture delivered in America in 1917, Tagore said,


The problem of race unity which we have been try-ing to solve for so many years has likewise to be faced by you here in America. Many people in this country ask me what is happening as to the caste distinctions in India. But when this question is asked me, it is usu-ally done with a superior air. And I feel tempted to put the same question to our American critics with a slight modification. ‘What have you done with the Red In-dian and the Negro?’ For you have not got over your attitude of caste toward them. You have used violent methods to keep aloof from other races, but until you have solved the question here in America, you have no right to question India.28

Of course, this is no answer to the question as Tagore was well aware of it. So he said,

In spite of our great difficulty, however, India has done something. She has tried to make an adjustment of rac-es, to acknowledge the real differences between them where they exist and yet seek for some basis of unity. This basis has come through our saints, like Nanak, Kabir, Chaitanya, and others preaching one God to all races of India.29

To clarify, Tagore is not saying one religion, but one God. For count-less millennia, the saints and sages of India have given the eternal truth that by whatever name you address God, whether it is Ishvara or Allah, we are all praying to the same eternal Reality. This is the message of the harmony of religions, exemplified dramatically in the life of Sri Ramakrishna.

After having written his treatise on world history, Toynbee wrote,Today we are still living in this transitional chapter of the world’s history, but it is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. … At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is an Indian way. … Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence and Sri Ramak-rishna’s testimony to the harmony of religions; here we have the attitude and the spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single fam-ily – and in the Atomic Age, this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves.30

The extent to which the human race can put this into practice will de-termine if we have, as a world community, started our march towards civili-zation. According to Vivekananda, this march must begin with education. In an interview in Prabuddha Bharata in 1898, Vivekananda said “true educa-tion . . . is not yet conceived of amongst us.” When asked how he would define “education”, he replied, “I never define anything. Still, it may be described as the development of faculty, not an accumulation of words, or as a training of the individual to will rightly and efficiently.”31 In our infor-mation age, we are apt to confuse information with education. Warning us presciently against this, Vivekananda wrote, “Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all

your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making as-similation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.”32 From this passage, we begin to converge on Vive-kananda’s idea of education as character-building. Again, in a lecture on “Breathing”, he elaborates: “Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind is the ideal of education.”33

This brings us to the essential point. If education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man, and civilization is measured by the extent to which we have given expression to this divinity, then it follows that civiliza-tion must be measured at least by our expression of humanity. In this age of scientific atheism, this may be a better measurement, since clearly we are not there yet. The human being has infinite potential. The goal is to express this through work or worship, through knowledge or psychic control, or by any combination of these. That is the essence of religion and if we practise it in earnest, we will have embarked on our march towards civilization.

It seems fitting to conclude with the following quotation of the West Indian poet Aimé Césaire, who wrote, “But the work of man is only just be-ginning and it remains to conquer all the violence entrenched in the recesses of his passion and no race possesses the monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, of force, and there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory.”34

M. Ram Murty • Department of Mathematics, Queen’s University, 99 Uni-versity Avenue, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6 • [email protected]

NOTES1 Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (hereafter referred to as CW), Volume 3, p. 114.2 There is a famous joke regarding an American reporter who asked Ma-hatma Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization, to which Gandhi replied, “I think it will be a good idea!”3 Arnold Toynbee, in: Introduction to World Thinkers on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, p 6.4 CW, Volume 3, p. 1145 CW, Vol. 2, p. 27.6 Sri Aurobindo, Complete Works, Vol. 3, p. 454. 7 CW, Volume 5, p. 308.8 CW, Volume 4, p. 358.9 Matthew 5.48.10 CW, Volume 4, p. 144.11 CW, Volume 4, p. 357.12 CW, Volume 4, p. 358.13 CW, Volume 1, p. 124.14 Voltaire, Les lettres d’Amabed (1769), septieme lettre d’Amabed.15 A. Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Es-says, Volume 2, Section 92. 16 M. Bernal, p. 318.17 M. Bernal, p. 2.18 M. Bernal, Black Athena Writes Back, 2001, Duke University Press, p. 3.19 Ibid., pp. 4-5.20 D. Hume, p. 86.21 James Mill, History of British India, Volume 2, pp. 210-211.22 M. Bernal, Black Athena writes back, p. 228.

FEBRUARY 2014 13

23 T.H. Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, New York, Apple-ton, 1871.24 See p. 138 of The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the Making of a Presi-dent, by Timothy S. Good, McFarland and Company, 2007.25 Martin Bernal, Black Athena, Volume 1, p. 29.26 Martin Luther King Jr., Autobiography, edited by Clayborne Carson, Warner Books, 1998, p. 129.27 Rabindranath Tagore, “Nationalism in India”, p.2.28 Ibid., p. 1.29 Ibid., p. 1.30 Arnold Toynbee, in: Introduction to World Thinkers on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, p 6.31 CW, Volume 5, p. 231.32 CW, Volume 3, p. 302.33 CW, Volume 1, p. 510.34 Aimé Césaire, Return to my native land, Penguin, 1969, p. 85

BIBLIOGRAPHYSri Aurobindo, Collected Works, Pondicherry.

M. Bernal, Black Athena, Volume 1, The Fabrication of Ancient Greece,

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1987.

C. A. Diop, Civilization or Barbarism, An Authentic Anthropology, LawrenceHill Books, 1991.

D. Hume, Of National Characters, in: Political Essays: Hume, ed. K. Haakon-sen, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.

Swami Lokeswarananda, Introduction to World Thinkers on Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, second edition, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kol-kata, 2009.

I.Olalde et al., Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a7,000 year-old Mesolithic European, Nature (2014), published online26 January 2014 (doi:10.1038/nature12960).

Rabindranath Tagore, “Nationalism in India, in Indian Philosophy in English,”edited by Nalini Bhushan and Jay Garfield, Oxford University Press, 2011.

Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, Volumes1-8, 1989, Volume 9, 1997.

I agree with you so far that faith is a wonderful insight and that it alone can save; but there is the danger in it of breeding fanaticism and barring further progress.

Jnana is all right; but there is the danger of its becoming dry intellectualism. Love is great and noble; but it may die away in meaningless senti-mentalism.

A harmony of all these is the thing re-quired. Ramakrishna was such a harmony. Such beings are few and far between; but keeping him and his teachings as the ideal, we can move on. And if amongst us, each one may not individually attain to that perfection, still

we may get it collectively by counteracting, equipoising, adjusting, and fulfilling one another. This would be harmony by a number of persons and a decided advance on all other forms and creeds.

For a religion to be effective, enthusiasm is necessary. At the same time we must try to avoid the danger of multiplying creeds. We avoid that by being a non-sectarian sect, having all the advantages of a sect and the broadness of a universal religion...

We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance, the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds. We believe that this is the conscious or unconscious basis of all religions and that this is the explanation of the whole history of human progress either in the material, intellectual, or spiritual plane — the same Spirit is manifesting through different planes. ...

We believe that it is the duty of every soul to treat, think of, and behave to other souls as such, i.e. as Gods, and not hate or despise, or vilify, or try to injure them by any manner or means. This is the duty not only of the Sannyasin, but of all men and women. ...

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.Therefore the only duty of the teacher in both cases is to remove

all obstructions from the way. Hands off! as I always say, and every-thing will be all right. That is, our duty is to clear the way. The Lord does the rest.

By Swami Vivekananda(from: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 4 pp. 356-360)

What We Believe In

Photo Credit:Wikipedia


The Body of the Atman in the Katha UpanishadVIKRAMAN BALAJI

In this series of articles, we will be guided by the following general prin-ciple: the deeper one comprehends the Veda, the more one unravels the mysteries in the Upanishads. Our primary sources of inspiration are the writings of Sri Aurobindo (Secret of the Veda, 1972), (The Upanishads,

1972) and Ananda Coomaraswamy (Perception of the Vedas, 2000). In this article we will make an attempt to comprehend certain hymns from the Katha Upanishad.

THE BODY OF THE ĀTMAN IN THE KATHA UPANISHADWe take up for our meditation the following hymns from the Katha

Upanishad which shed light on issues concerning the mysteries of realizing Brahman here and in this body. We would make brief comments on existing translations and interpretations with complete references to enable the read-ers to make their own comparisons, our sole aim being to stimulate the study of this fascinating text from our hoary past.

In attempting to gain insight into the root sense and inner meaning of the words which occur in the Vedic literature, it may not be out of place to reiterate some of the basic principles we are following. Our basic hypothesis is that words that occur in these ancient texts, the Śruti, retain a definite core root sense, “the heart of the word” which simultaneously represent complex ideas viewed from multiple standpoints, emphasizing aspects, functions and connotations. The vocabulary of these texts is simultaneously a vocabulary of spiritual experience and of poetic art, since the mystic Seer was, at the same time, a Kavi, a Ṛṣi, a maṇīṣī, and even more. Thus there was no tren-chant division among seers, poets and saints. The person who uttered or expressed something was blessed with the power of the Word, which was creative in every sense of the word.

Let us turn to the hymns with our translations, based on the word stud-ies of Sri Aurobindo and Ananda Coomaraswamy. We shall follow them with exegetical comments and justifications.

Aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān, ātmāsya jantor nihito guhāyām |Tam akratuḥ paśyati vīta-śoko dhātu-prasādān mahimānam ātmanaḥ ||1.2.20

Smaller than the infinitesimal, more immense than any immensity, the Self-Essence is hidden in the secret heart within the one born here. When man is freed from intentions1 and casts away sorrow, he beholds Him; by the trans-parency of the elemental substratum is experienced the abundance and im-

mensity of the Essence.

aśarīraṁ śarīreṣu anavastheṣv avasthitam | mahāntaṁ vibhum ātmānam matvā dhīro na śocati || 1.2.22

Realizing the incorporeal in the corpus, the settled in the unsettled, the im-mense and expansive Self, the contemplative wise one grieves no longer.

nāyam ātmā pravacanena labhyo na medhayā na bahunā śrutena |yamevaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyas tasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanūṁ svām || 1.2.23

The Self-Essence is not to be attained by teaching nor by the intellect nor by much learning. Only by he whom this Being chooses can one attain Him; to such a one this Ātman unveils its own extended body.

iha ced aśakad boddhum prāk śarīrasya visrasaḥ |tataḥ sargeṣu lokeṣu śarīratvāya kalpate || 2.3.4

If here one is able to awaken to it2 before the body falls away, then in the emanated worlds, he is fashioned3 for embodiment 4.

na saṁdṛśe tiṣṭati rūpam asya na cakṣuṣā paśyati kaścanainam |hṛdā maṇīṣā manasābhikḷpto ya etad vidur amṛtās te bhavanti || 2.3.9

Not within the totality of vision stands His form, nor with the eye does one be-hold Him, Super-sculpted by the heart, by the inspired thought, by the mind, they who know Him, thus become the deathless ones.

astīty evopalabdhavyas tattva-bhāvena cobhayoḥ |astīty evopalabdhasya tattva-bhāvaḥ prasīdati || 2.3.13

FEBRUARY 2014 15”“The vocabulary of these texts is simultaneously a vocabulary of spiritual experience and of poetic art, since the mystic Seer was, at the same time, a Kavi, a Ṛṣi, a maṇīṣī, and even more.

Both as “He Is” must one apprehend Him as well as in His essential nature; when He is apprehended as “He is”, then His essential nature shines forth clearly.

A common theme threads the garland of hymns we have selected. Our meditation is stimulated by the profound phrase esa ātmā vivṛṇute tanūṁ svām, which we translate as “this Ātman reveals its own extended body” and we note that the word vivṛṇute comes from a different etymon than does the word vṛṇute, which comes earlier in the very same sentence. In vṛṇute the root vṛ is from var, or “to choose”, while the root vṛ in vivṛṇute is from “cover, veil”, hence, for instance, in apāvṛṇu, i.e., to “uncover, unveil, reveal, etc”5.

The word tanū is Vedic in its origin and since the Katha Upanishad is considered among the older Upanishadic texts, it seems legitimate to stick to the Vedic sense (as opposed to the modern one) if we are to get to the heart of the hymn. This word simply means “body”, coming from the root sense of tan meaning “to stretch” as in the Latin root “ten”, hence “extension”, etc. In this sense, we translate it as “extended body”. It has also its connotation of “tenuity” or “subtlety” and this also fits the sense we make. That it does not merely mean “form” in an abstract sense comes through in numerous instances in the Vedas, but we point out its occurrence in the Bhagavad-Gita, where we have mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritaṁ, i.e., “lodged in a human body”.

A clear distinction is being made between this “extended body” and the “corporeal” one since we have aśarīraṁ śarīreṣu placed consciously by the Rishi in the previous line. The hymn says this extended body is revealed to one whom the Being chooses and the Upanishad gives us desirable qualities for being chosen. The one quality we are especially fascinated by comes in the phrase dhātu-prasādān mahimānam ātmanaḥ.

Usually the word mahimā is rendered as “greatness”, which is gen-eral and does not do full justice to the word. As is so often the case, the root mah, from which all these derivations arise, is burdened with so much sense and meaning that a single English equivalent is well nigh impossible. It does stand for “greatness,” but it stands for much more, for immensity, for

might, for abundance, and vastness, for the quality of ghanatvam, a dense-ness which precludes any sense of separation, an intrinsic characteristic of the plane of Mahas of the Taittiriya Upanishad 6. We recall the beautiful and revealing phrase chidghana kāya7 that Swami Vivekananda uses to describe Sri Ramakrishna’s body!

So the Katha Upanishad says by the transparency, prasāda, or more precisely, “by the clear showing forth”, of the “elemental substratum” (the dhatu 8) can one experience the immensity and vastness of the Self, a prepa-

ration for the experience of the extended body of the Ātman. As the sādhana progresses, layer upon layer of substance in the individual is taken up and shown forth in the light, beginning from the mental elements and going all the way down to the physical substratum, and the dhatu prasāda is carried out, preparing, as it were, the totality of the person to experience simultane-ously the growing immensity from within and the enveloping abundance from without, mahimānam ātmanaḥ. The Veda says this beautifully:

Abhyavasthāḥ prajāyante pra vavrer vavriś ciketa |Upasthe mātur vi caṣte || Rig Veda 5.19.1.

States upon states are born, covering upon covering awakens to conscious-ness, in the lap of the mother (or the matrix) he wholly sees. (see Sri Au-robindo, Secret of the Veda, page 405)

How does one carry out the central process of dhatu prasāda in one’s sādhana? To carry this out, first there must be some perception, a compre-hension, however imperfect, of the complexity of the substratum. The Tait-tiriya Upanishad says, the Eternal Brahman having created all, entered it (tat sṛṣtvā, tad evānuprāviśat), and descending grade by grade all the way down, He gets concealed in a total fragmentation. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad even says:

sa eṣa iha praviṣta ānakhāgrebhyaḥ yathā, kṣuraḥ kṣuradhāne’vahataḥ syāt | viśvam–bharo vā viśvam-bhara-kulāye ||1.4.7

Brahman entered9 here even to the tips of the nails, as a razor is covered in its razor-case, or as the all-supporting within his all-supporting nest (or axle)10.

To get a deeper comprehension of this statement, we give a part trans-lation (based on the renderings of Sri Aurobindo (Life Divine, footnotes of page 240, and Coomaraswamy, Perceptions of the Vedas, page 78-79) of the

magnificent Hymn 10.129 of the Rig Veda.

ānīt avātaṁ svadhayā tat ekaṁ tasmāt ha anyat na paraḥ kiṁ cana āsa | 2.2

Breathless (avāta), That One breathed (ānīt) by intrinsic-power11 (svadhā), there was none other, nor aught there-beyond.

tamaḥ āsīt tamasā gūḷhaṁ agre apraketaṁ salilaṁ sarvaṁ āḥ idaṁ |3.1tuccyena ābhu apihitaṁ yat āsīt tapasaḥ tat mahinā ajāyata ekaṁ ||3.2

In the beginning (agre) Darkness (tamas) was hidden (gūḷha) by darkness, all this was the inconscient (apraketa) surging ocean (salila)12. The univer-sal becoming (ābhu13) was covered over (apihita) by fragmentation (tucchi); That One was born (ajāyat) by the immense might (mahi) of intention (tapas).


sataḥ bandhuṁ asati niḥ avindaṅ hṛidi prati iṣya kavayaḥ manīṣā ||4.2

The seer-poets (kavayaḥ) by their seeking (iṣya) and inspired thought (manīṣā) discovered (avindaṅ) in the heart (hṛidi) the kin of Being (sat) in non-being (asat).

tirascīnaḥ vitataḥ raśmiḥ eṣāṁ adhaḥ svit āsīt upari svit āsīt |5.1retaḥ dhā āsaṅ mahimānaḥ āsaṅ svadhā avastāt prayatiḥ prastāt ||5.2

What thread of Light (raśmi) was extended across, what below and what above? There were casters of the seed (retodhā), there were greatness and immensity (mahimānaḥ), there was intrinsic-power below, there was inten-tion (prayati) above.

The breathless one which breathed is the Mātariśvan (that which ex-pands as breath in the matrix or the mother), and is also the incorporeal within the body, the aśarīraṁ śarīreṣu of the Katha Upanishad. Seer-poets divined, with the arrow of seeking (iṣya)14, the Being deep within the secret heart of the elemental substratum (Katha Upanishad 1.2.20). They also dis-covered the seed (retaḥ) for the growing Presence and immensity together with the self-organizing power of Nature (svadhā) essential for its growth, both coexisting in this fragmentation. They perceived the Divine intention, the pressure which acts from above for the realization15 of That which is seated within.

By a conscious self-offering in the inner Agni, there is a showing forth of the elements, a dhatu prasāda, in the shaft of Light which penetrates and transfigures the atomic substratum. What follows is a gradual conversion of the human into a likeness of a fundamental oneness with the Ātman, a forg-ing, a shaping of the body of God in man and a filling in of its contours. It as a growing Presence and Power, a Śhakti, which “in matter is an automatic action and effectuation of the hidden idea in things; in life its most seizable form is instinct, an instinctive subconscious or partly conscious knowledge and operation; in mind it reveals itself as intuition, a swift, direct and self-effective illumination of intelligence, will, sense and aesthesis. While these are merely irradiations …which accommodate themselves to the limited functioning of the obscurer instruments, its own characteristic nature is a gnosis superconscient to mind, life and body” (Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga, page 599).

The body of this Ātman is conceived and fashioned in the secret heart by the enlightened mind and inspired thought, hṛdā maṇīṣā manasābhikḷptaḥ, and in consonance with the transparency of the substratum, this body emerg-es shining forth in its essential nature, tattva-bhāvaḥ prasīdati, as the Vedic Rishi sings magnificently (Rig Veda 5.1.2)

sam iddhasya ruśat dadarśi pājaḥ, mahān devaḥ tamaso niḥ amōci

When he is entirely kindled, a red-glowing mass of Him is seen; an immense Being of Light has been delivered from within the darkness, (based on Sri Aurobindo, Secret of the Veda page 364).

The mahān devaḥ resonating with the mahimānam ātmanaḥ of the Katha Upanishad. This fashioning suggests the hands of a skillful sculptor chipping away the covering from a mass of matter, revealing the Deity hid-den within, nihitam guhāyām. The wonderfully symbolic “eye-opening” of the sculpted vigraha in the inner sādhana signals the final opening of the inner eye of the sādhaka, who recognizes the hands that sculpted. This is the

Divine’s choosing, coinciding mysteriously at this timeless point in “Time” with the epiphany, when the Ātman allows the cloak to slip from his own body, vivṛṇute tanūṁ svām.

This emerging body of God becomes the chidghana kaya, and the sādhaka is now perfectly suited for an “embodiment in the worlds”, śarīratvāya kalpate. Such is the embodiment that is envisaged for the real-ized soul, and the Upanishad tells us in (2.3.4) that this is no after-death expe-rience in some yonder-world; this mystery16 is perhaps the central mystery in the Katha Upanishad. We are drawn to the first boon of Yama to Nachiketas, where Yama assures Nachiketas of recognition and acceptance by his father on his return to this world even though he would be clothed in the new em-bodiment after the visitation to the House of Death.

We close this essay with a few remarks on the word prasāda. In the Bhagavad-Gita (as well as in some well-known commentaries on the Katha Upanishad17) the word prasāda is taken to mean “grace”. The word occurs several times in the Gita and is rendered differently in different places even by Sri Aurobindo. In Chapter II, it occurs twice where the rendering we give applies naturally. In Chapters XI and XVIII, the word gets a relatively mod-ern connotation of “grace”, as for instance in matprasādāt, by “my grace”, where no other rendering fits the sense18. But as Sri Aurobindo clearly eluci-dates, “this divine grace, if we may so call it, is not simply a mysterious flow or touch coming from above, but the all-pervading act of a divine presence which we come to know within as a power of the highest Self and Master of our being entering into the soul and so possessing it that we not only feel it close to us and pressing upon our mortal nature, but live in its law, know that law, possess it as the whole power of our spiritualised nature” (Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga, page 595). Its appropriateness in the Gita is clearly impeccable.

Vikraman Balaji • Chennai Mathematics Institute, Chennai, India •[email protected]

NOTES1 Kratu = will, intention, design, usually seen as a higher willing; for instance as an attribute of Agni.2 Become aware of it3 Sculpted, moulded, fitted.4 To interpret this hymn, we can safely ignore the extraordinary ellipsis in which Sankara indulges!5 See, for example, the new translation of Upanishads by Patrick Olivelle (Oxford University Press, 2009), wherein this error is seen.6 which also comes in our previous essay as vijñānaghana.7 consciousness-dense body.8 The dictionary meaning is “layer, stratum, constituent part, ingredient, pri-mary element, etc.” (page 513, Monier-Williams).9 viśvam-bhara = all-supporting becomes a “termite” in Patrick Olivelle’s translation.10 Like the nave of a wheel supporting all that moves around it.11 Or self-power, Nature’s own-power.12 The nether ocean marked by its surge and flux in contrast with the upper ocean in its movelessness.13 As Sri Aurobindo explains in the Secret of the Veda (page 269), “ābhu, is used of divine form of godhead falling on form of humanity, to become, take shape, as it were, in him”.14 We use both roots of iṣ, (1) arrow and (2) seeking, which get harmoni-

FEBRUARY 2014 17

ously coalesced in the process of “divination” or “belomancy”. 15 i.e., in the literal sense, “making real, give reality to”.16 What ensues when this dhātu prasādana is carried out in the most frag-mented states, when the consciousness is itself centred there, when the intrin-sic power (svadhā) is awakened there, is a mystery that Sri Aurobindo has elaborated on in his work. 17 On the other hand, we believe it does not quite fit the Katha Upanishad. though it has been rendered in this manner by Sri Krishnaprem in his brilliant commentary “The Yoga of the Katha Upanishad”. Our rendering is inspired by Coomaraswamy’s study.18 As to the usual English sense of “grace”, the OED defines it as “favour, said with reference to God”.

BIBLIOGRAPHYS. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads, Harper-Collins, 1996.

Coomaraswamy, A. K., Perception of the Vedas, New Delhi:Indra Gandhi National Centre for Arts, 2000.

Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads, The Collected Works of SriAurobindo (Birth Centenary Library), Volume 12, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972.

Sri Aurobindo, Secret of the Veda, The Collected Works of SriAurobindo (Birth Centenary Library), Volume 10, Sri AurobindoAshram, Pondicherry, 1972.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Collected Works of SriAurobindo (Birth Centenary Library), Volume 20-21, Sri AurobindoAshram, Pondicherry, 1972.

I will read to you from one of the Upanishads. It is called the Katha Upanishad. Some of you, perhaps, have read the translation by Sir Edwin Arnold, called the Secret of Death. In our last [i.e. a previous] lecture we saw how the inquiry which started with the origin of the world, and the creation of the universe, failed to obtain a satisfactory answer from with-out, and how it then turned inwards. This book psychologically takes up that suggestion, questioning into the internal nature of man. It was first asked who created the external world, and how it came into being. Now the question is: What is that in man which makes him live and move, and what becomes of that when he dies? The first philosophers studied the material substance, and tried to reach the ultimate through that. At the best, they found a personal governor of the universe, a human being immensely magnified, but yet to all intents and purposes a human being. But that could not be the whole of truth; at best, it could be only partial truth. We see this universe as human beings, and our God is our human explanation of the universe.

Suppose a cow were philosophical and had religion, it would have a cow universe, and a cow solution of the problem, and it would not be possible that it should see our God. Suppose cats became philosophers, they would see a cat universe and have a cat solution of the problem of the universe, and a cat ruling it. So we see from this that our explanation of the universe is not the whole of the solution. Neither does our concep-tion cover the whole of the universe. It would be a great mistake to ac-cept that tremendously selfish position which man is apt to take. Such a solution of the universal problem as we can get from the outside labours under this difficulty that in the first place the universe we see is our own particular universe, our own view of the Reality. That Reality we cannot see through the senses; we cannot comprehend it. We only know the universe from the point of view of beings with five senses. Suppose we obtain another sense, the whole universe must change for us. Suppose

we had a magnetic sense, it is quite possible that we might then find mil-lions and millions of forces in existence which we do not now know, and for which we have no present sense or feeling. Our senses are limited, very limited indeed; and within these limitations exists what we call our universe; and our God is the solution of that universe, but that cannot be the solution of the whole problem. But man cannot stop there. He is a thinking being and wants to find a solution which will comprehensively explain all the universes. He wants to see a world which is at once the world of men, and of gods, and of all possible beings, and to find a solu-tion which will explain all phenomena.

We see, we must first find the universe which includes all universes; we must find something which, by itself, must be the material running through all these various planes of existence, whether we apprehend it through the senses or not. If we could possibly find something which we could know as the common property of the lower as well as of the higher worlds, then our problem would be solved. Even if by the sheer force of logic alone we could understand that there must be one basis of all existence, then our problem might approach to some sort of solution; but this solution certainly cannot be obtained only through the world we see and know, because it is only a partial view of the whole.

Our only hope then lies in penetrating deeper. ... The ancient sages penetrated deeper and deeper until they found that in the innermost core of the human soul is the centre of the whole universe. All the planes gravitate towards that one point. That is the common ground, and stand-ing there alone can we find a common solution. So the question who made this world is not very philosophical, nor does its solution amount to anything.

This the Katha Upanishad speaks in very figurative language.

By Swami Vivekananda(from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 2, pp. 155-157)

Realisation

Rina Chakravarti, Pan-American Congress of Religion and Education in Toronto 1895 ........... 1

M. Ram Murty, What is Civilization? .............................................................................................................. 8

Vikraman Balaji, The Body of the Atman in the Katha Upanishad ................................................... 14

CONTENTS

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