Swami Vivekananda And The Inclusiveness That India Stood For

By: M.R. Lalu
India has been a land of seekers for generations. Seeking was regarded as the highest pursuit of life. The pursuit of ultimate knowledge was the mission of most of the people. From a peasant to the priest to the prince, everybody had, in a certain way, directed their life in pursuit of knowledge. Interestingly, Indians were ready to make sacrifices to any extent to strengthen their inner being to pursue the real knowledge. Life of saints and sages are examples of such pursuits and what they left for the rest of the world is the proof of evidence for the sacrifice that they made to realize the ultimate truth which indeed is beyond the comprehension of the common precincts of religions. Semitic religions across the globe have always been placing one coat which they thought must fit Jack and John. If it did not fit Henry and Harry, they should go on without a coat or try to trim-size them to the coat those religions had to offer. History is full of proofs of such manipulative exercises. Indian spiritual thought was much open in this regard and placed it to the world with as much varieties as possible. Now it was for the seeker to choose the one which he thought was suitable for him and move towards the higher dimensions of realization. Offering single coat to the mass was the essential religious activity sustained by the western religions. India has often been criticized for its being polytheistic; essentially the critics probably fully unaware of its underlining monotheistic principles leading the seeker to the ultimate reality with clarity. A religion that survived for eons with adequate changes being incorporated in its system, has never been acrimonious with anything that challenged its pluralistic ways and practices of existence. Nobody can put it more beautifully than Swami Vivekananda. He says, “The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbours.”
The wisdom that a religion with plurality can offer is amazingly exemplary. This is because a certain level of inclusive spiritual mechanism is naturally in place when spiritual diversity seeks the ultimate in variety of forms and fashions. Diverse and essentially plural and practically viable systems seeking spiritual liberation, frequently hold the capacity to help human to progress into his higher realms in multiple ways; amicably helping him to hold on to the differences which are external without being prejudiced and biased. Swami Vivekananda defines such a religion as a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding humanity to realise its own true, divine nature. Basically, this is where various religions narrow-mindedly handling or fail to handle the essential humanness strengthened by the essence of the spirit of oneness which is essentially termed as the spirit of unity. Intolerance among religions which are indisputably exclusive in terms of religious coexistence is a reality. What matters to most of them is to revive, retrieve and justify the culpable intention of sinister intrusion into the other’s affairs and proclaim that what they stood for throughout their history was with divine purpose and what they would do in future would also be the same.
Swami Vivekananda explains this with clarity with an example. In his speech ‘Buddhism, the fulfilment of Hinduism’ he says, “The relation between Hinduism and what is called Buddhism at the present day is nearly the same as between Judaism and Christianity. Jesus Christ was a Jew, and Buddha was a Hindu. The Jews rejected Jesus Christ and crucified him, and the Hindus have accepted Buddha as God and worship him.” This narrative is evident enough to depict the essence of inclusiveness that the ancient spiritual wisdom of India stood for. Indeed, it is true that whichever religious faith hit the shore of India was welcomed with open hands and they had enough space in India to flourish peacefully, amicably and unperturbed. Indeed, this is the basis of the spiritual thought that India has to offer to the world, inclusiveness without being prejudiced and skeptical. When it comes to the exclusive ideals of various religions, Swami Vivekananda is warning them with the sternest of his words. He tells, “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.” A world, which is increasingly intolerant towards cultural varieties is heading towards a dangerous turn with a culpable silence, shrinking itself into the wells of spiritual apathy indiscriminantly. Swami Vivekananda’s messages stand out invoking the world to come together to appreciate the essence of unity that India stood for ages and the only solution that humanity can rely on for peaceful coexistence.
(The writer is a Freelance journalist/ Social Worker)