THE MISSION OF THE VEDANTA : 3.

(On the occasion of his visit to Kumbakonam, the Swamiji was presented with the following address by the local Hindu community:)


Ay, in other countries religion is only one of the many necessities in life. 

To use a common illustration which I am in the habit of using, my lady has many things in her parlour, and it is the fashion nowadays to have a Japanese vase, and she must procure it; it does not look well to be without it. 

So my lady, or my gentleman, has many other occupations in life, and also a little bit of religion must come in to complete it. 

Consequently he or she has a little religion. 

Politics, social improvement, in one word, this world, is the goal of mankind in the West, and God and religion come in quietly as helpers to attain that goal. 

Their God is, so to speak, the Being who helps to cleanse and to furnish this world for them; that is apparently all the value of God for them. 

Do you not know how for the last hundred or two hundred years you have been hearing again and again out of the lips of men who ought to have known better, from the mouths of those who pretend at least to know better, that all the arguments they produce against the Indian religion is this — that our religion does not conduce to well-being in this world, that it does not bring gold to us, that it does not make us robbers of nations, that it does not make the strong stand upon the bodies of the weak and feed themselves with the life-blood of the weak. '

Certainly our religion does not do that. 

It cannot send cohorts, under whose feet the earth trembles, for the purpose of destruction and pillage and the ruination of races. 

Therefore they say — what is there in this religion? 

It does not bring any grist to the grinding mill, any strength to the muscles; what is there in such a religion?


Continues...