SWAMI VIVEKANANDA-Speech at the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago

 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA



Speech at the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: “Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.” 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 persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

സ്വാമിജി : സിന്‍ഹ, നിന്റെ അമ്മയെ ആരെന്കിലും അപമാനിച്ചാല്‍ നീ എന്ത് ചെയ്യും ??

സിന്‍ഹ : ഞാന്‍ അവന്റെ മേല്‍ ചാടി വീണു അവനെ ഒരു നല്ല പാഠം പഠിപ്പിക്കും ..

സ്വാമിജി : അസ്സല്‍ മറുപടി ..എന്നാല്‍ ഇതേ വിചാരം തന്നെ നമ്മുടെ രാജ്യത്തിന്റെയും യഥാര്‍ത്ഥ മാതാവായ സ്വന്തം ധര്‍മ്മത്തോടും നിനക്കുണ്ടായിരുന്നെന്കില്‍ ഒരു ഹിന്ദു സഹോദരനെ ക്രിസ്തു മതത്തിലേക്ക് മാര്‍ഗം കൂട്ടുന്നത് കണ്ടു സഹിക്കുവാന്‍ നിനക്ക് കഴിയുമായിരുന്നില്ല ..

എന്നാല്‍ നിത്യേന അതിവിടെ നടന്നു കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നത് കാണുന്നു .. 

എന്നിട്ടും നീ ഉദാസീനന്‍ ആണ് .. എവിടെ നിന്റെ വിശ്വാസ നിഷ്ഠ ??
എവിടെ നിന്റെ സ്വദേശാഭിമാനം ??? 

ക്രിസ്ത്യന്‍ പാതിരി ദിവസേന നിന്റെ മുഖത്ത് നോക്കി ഹിന്ദു ധര്‍മ്മത്തെ അവഹേളിക്കുന്നു ..എന്നാല്‍ അത് കേള്‍ക്കുമ്പോള്‍ , ധാര്‍മിക രോഷം കൊണ്ട് ചോര തിളയ്ക്കുന്നവരും സ്വധര്‍മ്മത്തെ രക്ഷിക്കുവാന്‍ മുന്നോട്ടു വരുന്നവരുമായി നിങ്ങളുടെ കൂട്ടത്തില്‍ എത്ര പേരുണ്ട് ??...

Feel The Great Vission -

REPLY BY SWAMI VIVEKANANDA TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT PAMBAN

May it please your holiness,

…We truly rejoice to see that the efforts of Your Holiness in sowing the seeds of Hindu philosophy in the cultured minds of the great Western nations are being crowned with so much success that we already see all around the bright and cheerful aspect of the bearing of excellent fruits in great abundance, and most humbly pray that Your Holiness will, during your sojourn in Aryavarta, be graciously pleased to exert yourself even a little more than you did in the West to awaken the minds of your brethren in this our motherland from their dreary life-long slumber and make them recall to their minds the long-forgotten gospel of truth….

…Our hearts are so full of the sincerest affection, greatest reverence, and highest admiration for Your Holiness-our great spiritual leader, that we verily find it impossible to adequately express our feelings, and, therefore, beg to conclude with an earnest and united prayer to the merciful Providence to bless Your Holiness with a long life of usefulness and to grant you everything that may tend to bring about the long-lost feelings of universal brotherhood….

Reply by Swami Vivekananda –

Our sacred motherland is a land of religion and philosophy-the birthplace of spiritual giants-the land of renunciation, where and where alone, from the most ancient to the most modern times, there has been the highest ideal of life open to man.

I have been in the countries of the West – have travelled through many lands of many races; and each race and each nation appears to me to have a particular ideal – a prominent ideal running through its whole life; and this ideal is the backbone of the national life. Not politics nor military power, not commercial supremacy nor mechanical genius furnishes India with that backbone, but religion; and religion alone is all that we have and mean to have. Spirituality has been always in India.

Great indeed are the manifestations of muscular power, and marvelous the manifestations of intellect expressing themselves through machines by the appliances of science; Yet none of these is more potent than the influence which spirit exerts upon the world.

Blessed Land i.e. India!

The history of our race shows that India has always been most active. Today we are taught by men who ought to know better that the Hindu is mild and passive; and this has become a sort of proverb with the people of other lands. I discard the idea that India was ever passive. Nowhere has activity been more pronounced than in this blessed land of ours, and the great proof of this activity is that our most ancient and magnanimous race still lives, and at every decade in its glorious career seems to take on fresh youth – undying and imperishable. This activity manifests here in religion. But it is a peculiar fact in human nature that it judges others according to its own standard of activity. Take, for instance, a shoemaker. He understands only shoemaking and thinks there is nothing in this life except the manufacturing of shoes. A bricklayer understands nothing but bricklaying and proves this alone in his life from day to day. And there is another reason which explains this. When the vibrations of light are very intense, we do not see them, because we are so constituted that we cannot go beyond our own plane of vision. But the Yogi with his spiritual introspection is able to see through the materialistic veil of the vulgar crowds.

The eyes of the whole world are now turned towards this land of India for spiritual food; and India has to provide it for all the races. Here alone is the best ideal for mankind; and Western scholars are now striving to understand this ideal which is enshrined in our Sanskrit literature and philosophy, and which has been the characteristic of India all through the ages.

Since the dawn of the history, no missionary went out of India to propagate the Hindu doctrines and dogmas; but now a wonderful change is coming over us. Shri Bhagavan Krishna says, “Whenever virtue subsides and immorality prevails, then I come again and again to help the world.” Religious disclose to us the fact that there is not a country possessing a good ethical code but has borrowed something of it from us, and there is not one religion possessing good ideas of the immortality of the soul but has derived it directly or indirectly from us.

There never was a time in the world’s history when there was so much robbery, and high-handedness, and tyranny of the strong over the weak, as at this latter end of the nineteenth century. Everybody should know that there is no salvation except through the conquering of desires, and that no man is free who is subject to the bondage of matter. This great truth all nations are slowly coming to understand and appreciate. As soon as the disciple is in a position to grasp this truth, the words of the Guru come to his help. The Lord sends help to His own children in His infinite mercy which never ceaseth and is ever flowing in all creeds. Our Lord is the Lord of all religions. This idea belongs to India alone; and I challenge any one of you to find it in any other scripture of the world.

We Hindus have now been placed, under God’s providence, in a very critical and responsible position. The nations of the West are coming to us for spiritual help. A great moral obligation rests on the sons of India to fully equip themselves for the work of enlightening the world on the problems of human existence. One thing we may note, that whereas you will find that good and great men of other countries take pride in tracing back their descent to some robber-baron who lived in a mountain fortress and emerged from  time to time to plunder passing wayfarers, we Hindus, on the other hand, take pride in being the descendants of Rishis and sages who lived on roots and fruits in mountains and caves, meditating on the Supreme. We may be degraded and degenerated now; but however degraded and degenerated we may be, we can become great if only we begin to work in right earnest on behalf of our religion.

       Accept my hearty thanks for the kind and cordial reception you have given me. It is impossible for me to express my gratitude to H.H. the Raja of Ramnad for his love towards me. If any good work has been done by me and through me, India owes much to this good man, for it was he who conceived the idea of my going to Chicago, and it was he who put that idea into my head and persistently urged me on to accomplish it. Standing beside me, he with all his old enthusiasm is still expecting me to do more and more work. I wish there were half a dozen more such Rajas to take interest in our dear motherland and work for her amelioration in the spiritual line.  (Book: Lectures from Colombo to Almora)

മലേഷ്യന്‍ സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ പുറത്തിറക്കിയത് :