Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Saprem Namaskar!
You must be already preparing for the celebrations of 11th September - The Universal Brotherhood Day. This utsava is expected to be one of biggest public functions celebrated by Vivekananda Kendra.
We celebrate 11th September as the Universal Brotherhood day because it is on this day that Swami Vivekananda gave the call for Universal Brotherhood in the parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. It is not that he just gave the call for Universal Brotherhood, but also pointed out that Universal Brotherhood is not possible if some one insists in following only one ‘historical’ or ‘personal’ God. Actually this approach that saying ‘My God alone is true and all should follow him’ only brings more bloodshed. The Universal Brotherhood is possible only if humanity can see God as cause of everything in this universe including the ‘historical’ or ‘personal’ Gods. This is what Vedanta is and the world needs it today.
Swami Vivekananda explained this very beautifully in his lecture the ‘The Mission of Vedanta’. He says “There are times in the history of a man’s life, nay, in the history of the lives of nations, when a sort of world-weariness becomes painfully predominant. It seems that such a tide of world-weariness has come upon the Western world. There, too, they have their thinkers, great men; and they are already finding out that this race after gold and power is all vanity of vanities; many, nay, most of the cultured men and women there, are already weary of this competition, this struggle, this brutality of their commercial civilization, and they are looking forward towards something better. There is a class which still clings on to political and social changes as the only panacea for the evils in Europe, but among the great thinkers there, other ideals are growing. They have found out that no amount of political or social manipulation of human conditions can cure the evils of life. It is a change of the soul itself for the better that alone will cure the evils of life. No amount of force, or government, or legislative cruelty will change the conditions of a race, but it is spiritual culture and ethical culture alone that can change wrong racial tendencies for the better. Thus these races of the West are eager for some new thought, for some new philosophy; The thoughtful men of the West find in our ancient philosophy, especially in the Vedanta, the new impulse of thought they are seeking, the very spiritual food and drink for which they are hungering and thirsting. And it is no wonder that this is so.
I have become used to hear all sorts of wonderful claims put forward in favour of every religion under the sun. You have also heard, quite within recent times, the claims put forward by Dr. Barrows, a great friend of mine, that Christianity is the only universal religion. Let me consider this question awhile and lay before you my reasons why I think that it is Vedanta, and Vedanta alone, that can become the universal religion of man, and that no other is fitted for the role. Excepting our own, almost all the other great religions in the world are inevitably connected with the life or lives of one or more of their founders. All their theories, their teachings, their doctrines, and their ethics are built round the life of a personal founder, from whom they get their sanction, their authority, and their power; and strangely enough, upon the historicity of the founder’s life is built, as it were, all the fabric of such religions. If there is one blow dealt to the historicity of that life, as has been the case in modern times with the lives of almost all the so-called founders of religion-we know that half of the details of such lives is not now seriously believed in, and that the other half is seriously doubted-if this becomes the case, if that rock of historicity, as they pretend to call it, is shaken and shattered, the whole building tumbles down, broken absolutely, never to regain its lost status.
Every one of the great religions in the world excepting our own is built upon such historical characters; but ours rests upon principles. There is no man or woman who can claim to have created the Vedas. They are the embodiment of eternal principles; sages discovered them; and now and then the names of these sages are mentioned-just their names; we do not even know who or what they were. But what cared they, these sages, for their names? They were the preachers of principles, and they themselves, so far as they went, tried to become illustrations of the principles they preached. At the same time, just as our God is an Impersonal and yet a Personal God, so is our religion a most intensely impersonal one-a religion based upon principles-and yet with an infinite scope for the play of persons; for what religion gives you more Incarnations, more prophets and seers, and still waits for infinitely more? The Bhagavata says that Incarnations are infinite, leaving ample scope for as many as you like to come. Therefore if any one or more of these persons in India’s religious history, any one or more of these Incarnations, and any one or more of our prophets are proved not to have been historical, it does not injure our religion at all; even then it remains firm as ever, because it is based upon principles, and not upon persons. If it ever becomes possible to bring the largest portion of humanity to one way of thinking in regard to religion, mark you, it must be always through principles and not through persons.”
He further says, “The second claim of the Vedanta upon the attention of the world is that, of all the scriptures in the world, it is the one scripture the teaching of which is in entire harmony with the results that have been attained by the modern scientific investigations of external nature.”
“It seems clear that modern materialism can hold its own and at the same time approach spirituality by taking up the conclusions of the Vedanta. It seems to us, and to all who care to know, that the conclusions of modern science are the very conclusions the Vedanta reached ages ago; only, in modern science they are written in the language of matter. This then is another claim of the Vedanta upon modern Western minds, its rationality, the wonderful rationalism of the Vedanta. I have myself been told by some of the best Western scientific minds of the day, how wonderfully rational the conclusions of the Vedanta are.”
Vedanta is not just a theory but a practical way to live in harmony with others and to raise oneself up. Swami Vivekananda says in the same lecture,” No civilization can begin to lift up its head until we look charitably upon one another; and the first step towards that much-needed charity is to look charitably and kindly upon the religious convictions of others. Nay more, to understand that not only should we be charitable, but positively helpful to each other, however different our religious ideas and convictions may be. The other great idea that the world wants from us today is that eternal grand idea of the spiritual oneness of the whole universe”.
This Vedanta is not a piece of information that is to be given to others but it is to be lived and practiced. We need to organize the people, to bring all the scattered spiritual forces together in our country so that Vedanta in our life influences and moulds the whole world. It is already happening. Recently in an article ‘We are all Hindus now’ in ‘NEWSWEEK’, August, 31, 2009 Lisa Miller writes that, ‘…But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, ourselves, each other, and eternity’. Sighting many polls and surveys conducted in the recent years in America, she states that many in America now believe in reincarnation as well as in the fact the all religions can lead to the eternal truth.
The need of the humanity to turn to Vedanta principles is becoming acute. Therefore taking to Vedanta has started. The time is ripe.
We have to emerge as a capable nation to hasten the process of living Vedanta principles in life effectively. That is the God-ordained duty for our nation. The realization of Universal brotherhood is possible only in the practice of Vedanta. We know that after the 11th September of 2001 the people seemed to have forgotten the great message of 11th September 1893. The violence of 11th September 2001 that has occupied and paralyzed the mind of man all over the world can be removed only with the message of Vedanta ‘of Oneness’ given by Swami Vivekananda on 11th September 1893.
Thus the celebrations of our Universal Brotherhood day should be to further the understanding of Vedanta. It can be best concluded in the words of Swami Vivekananda, “Work out the salvation of this land and of the whole world, each of you thinking that the entire burden is on your shoulders. Carry the light and the life of the Vedanta to every door, and rouse up the divinity that is hidden within every soul. Then, whatever may be the measure of your success, you will have this satisfaction that you have lived, worked, and died for a great cause. In the success of this cause, howsoever brought about, is centered the salvation of humanity here and hereafter.
Wishing you all the best for the meaningful celebration of function.
With warm regards and prayers,
Yours sincerely,
(B. Nivedita)
Vice-President
