THOUGHTS OF VIVEKANANDA / FROM UPANISHADS
ARVIND K. PANDEY
1. The debt which the world owes to our mother land is immense .Taking country with country, there is not one race on this earth to which the world owes so much as to the patient Hindu, the mild Hindu.
2. To many , Indian thought , Indian manners ,Indian customs ,Indian philosophy ,Indian literature are repulsive at first sight ; but let them persevere , let them read , let them become familiar with the great principles underlying these ideas , and it ninety nine to one that the charm will come over them , and fascination will be the result .
3. Hindus accept every religion , praying in the mosque of the Mohammedans , worshipping before the fire of the Zoroastrians ,and kneeling before the cross of Christians , knowing that all the religions , from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism , mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the infinite , each determined by the conditions of its birth and association , and each of them making a stage of progress .We gather all these flowers and bind them with the twine of love , making a wonderful bouquet of worship .
4. And what is the mission with which every Hindu child is born? Have you not read the proud declaration of Manu regarding the Brahamana where he says , that the birh of the Brahmana is for the protection of the treasury of religion ? I should say that that is the mission of not only of the Brahamana , but of every child , whether boy or girl , who is born on this blessed land for the protection of the treasury of religion . And every other problem in life must be subordinated to that one principal theme. The secret of true Hindu character lies in the subordination of his knowledge of European sciences and learning, of his wealth, position and name , to that one principle theme which is inborn in every Hindu child the spirituality and purity of the race .
5. We are Hindus .I do not use the word Hindu in any bad sense at all, nor do I agree with those who think that there is any bad meaning in it. In old times , it simply meant people who lived on other side of Indus ; today a good many among those who hate us may have put a bad interpretation upon it , but names are nothing .Upon us depends whether the name Hindu will stand for everything that is glorious , everything that is spiritual , or whether it will remain a name of opprobrium , one designating the downtrodden , the worthless , the heathen .If at present the word Hindu means everything bad , never mind ; by our actions let us be ready to show that this is the highest word that any language can invent . It has been one of the principles of my life not to be ashamed of my ancestors .I am one of the proudest men ever born , but let me tell you frankly .It is not for myself , but on account of my ancestry .The more I have studied the past , the more I have looked back , more and more this pride come to me , and it has given me the strength and courage of conviction ,raised me from the dust of the earth , and set me working out that great plan laid out by those great ancestors of ours .
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Excerpts from the article Culture of peace by BENOY K. BEHL published in
FRONTLINE (SEP.12, 2008)
In the 8th or the 9th century B.C., the Upanishads were composed out of the philosophic traditions that came from the earliest times of Indic civilisation . The thoughts contained in the Upanishads went on to form the basis of all major faiths in the subcontinent, in times to come.
This is a philosophy that sees a great oneness in all of creation. It is the same that is in each of us, in plants and trees, in animals, even in inanimate objects. All that there is, is perceived to be a part of the One. Samsara, the world of separated beings and objects around us, is believed to be an illusion we see owing to the limitations of our senses and sensibilities. (Four or five centuries later, the Greek philosopher Plato voiced similar thoughts about the illusory nature of what we perceive through our senses.)
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