Note: The following is an excerpt from the recently published book Vivekananda: The Philosopher of Freedom (How the Sangh Parivar’s Greatest Icon Is Its Archnemesis) by Govind Krishnan. V. Published by: Aleph Book Company.
Vivekananda wrote: The duty of the ordinary man is to obey the commands of his “God”, society; but the children of light never do so. This is an eternal law. One accommodates himself to surroundings and social opinion and gets all good things from society, the giver of all good to such. The other stands alone and draws society up towards him.’
Vivekananda goes on to make clear that he sees social liberty and spiritual liberty as two sides of the same coin. They were both expressions of the same principle of freedom, which for Vivekananda was the ultimate goal of human existence…
(Editor’s note: A quote present at this point in the original text has been omitted for ease of reading and continuity.)
Scriptures, Rituals, and the Gods
Vivekananda’s attitude towards the scriptures, holy men, and sacred sites of Hinduism was informed by the same principle of freedom discussed above. They were means to achieve spiritual realisation, not ends in themselves. He constantly reiterated that real religion was not to be found in books.
Drawing upon the Vedantic tradition of Hinduism, Vivekananda emphasised that Hinduism did not recognise the authority of any books, not even the Vedas. The Vedas were guides which the Hindus believed contained spiritual laws discovered by ancient seers. They are guides to spiritual realisation, not a prescriptive set of rules for living. The fact that the Vedas say something is not a reason for that something to be considered true. Its truth has to be ascertained on its own merit.
“Vedanta does not believe in any of these teachings. First, it does not believe in a book – that is the difficulty to start with. It denies the authority of any book over any other book. It denies emphatically that any one book can contain all the truths about God, the soul, and the ultimate reality. Those of you who have read the Upanishads remember that they say again and again, ‘Not by the reading of books can we realise the Self,’ he told a San Francisco audience around the same time he wrote to Mary Hale, in a lecture titled ‘Is Vedanta the future religion?’”
According to Vivekananda, Hinduism teaches that scriptures are not sources of normative authority. Vivekananda looked upon the sacred scriptures as texts to be treated critically, not sacrosanct objects which should be worshipped blindly. This allowed him to treat scriptures as historical objects and negotiate their contents using reason. The way he described the Vedas to an American audience was typical of his attitude. “These Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, are a vast mass of accumulation – some of them crude – until you come to where religion is taught, only the spiritual.” (That is, the Upanishads)…
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here