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Something good

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ipsita78444
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LEAD – IN

Many great saints (sages: ମୁନିଋଷି) were born in India. One among these
carried the teachings (ଧର୍ମବାଣୀ) of the Upanisads to the people of the world.
The great and liberal philosophy of India fascinated (attracted) the audience
when the young saint spoke to them in simple words but with profound
(deep) faith and confidence. Here Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, the great
teacher and philosopher (ଦାର୍ଶନିକ) speaks about him on the saint’s 92nd
birthday. Let’s read the lesson to know more about the great son of India.

SUMMARY

The writer/philosopher Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan feels pleasure to be at


the August (auspicious) gathering for distributing prizes for recitation and
speech competitions.

1. He has cited (exemplified) the glorious life and teachings of Vivekananda,


one of the great leaders of the Indian Renaissance.

2. Vivekananda like his contemporaries (ସମସାମୟିକ) didn’t preach a new


system of thoughts.

3. He only interpreted and conveyed ( ଜଣାଇଥିଲେ )to the world India’s


religious consciousness, treasures of the past.

4. Radhakrishnan in his speech, advocates (stress; ଗୁରୁତ୍ୱ ପ୍ରଦାନ


କରିଛନ୍ତି) the life and teachings of Swami Vivekananda, inspired by his
religious Guru Shri Ramakrishna.

5. The two dominant (influential) features science and democracy have


continued to stay in India.

6. But it is impossible to educate the Indians to accept religious faith without


rational evidence.

7. Religion in the views of Radhakrishnan should sustain our faith in


democracy

8. Any religion that tends to divide man from man, supports privileges
(opportunism; ସୁବିଧାବାଦ) exploitation, wars etc. shouldn’t be practised by
us.
9. The naked (open) truth in our life is the transience (କ୍ଷଣସ୍ଥାୟିତ୍ଵ) of all
sorts of things including our glorious deeds, heroism, etc.

10. The Upanisads give us an explanation of the fundamental problem of


another world beyond ours.

11. According to Vivekananda, the Vedas are not simply books but they are
the accumulated ‘ treasure of spiritual laws discovered by different persons
in different times.

12. For him, religion is yoga, personal change, adjustment and integration.

13. It is neither (not) profession of a doctrine nor intellectual orthodoxy.

14. Religion is all about awakening the life of the spirit in man.

15. Our intolerance germinates (is created) from our prejudicial ideas
(ସଂକୀର୍ତ୍ତି ଧାରଣା ) of the systems of faith.

16. But we should remember that intolerance is an expression of religious


conceit, not humility.

17. According to Radhakrishnan, in the name of secularism, we shouldn’t


promote intolerance.

18. Rather we should understand and love other religions.

19. Quoting Ramakrishna, Vivekananda said, “We Hindus don’t tolerate but
identify ourselves with the worship or prayers of the Mohammedans,
Zoroastrians or the Christians.”

20. Vivekananda protested strongly against the abuse of religion and


insistence on untouchability or touch ability.

21. In order to profit from the teachings of Vivekananda, we should try to


build a spiritual region above the narrowed ecclesiastical views.

PART – I

I am happy to be here and distribute prizes for recitation and speech


competitions. I congratulate those who have won these rewards on their
achievements. The students who won the prizes and the many others who
competed for them had the great opportunity of reading some of the writings
of Swami Vivekananda. I have no doubt they have been impressed and
inspired by what they have read. Vivekananda’s life and teachings have
prepared us for the new age of freedom in which we live.
They tell us how best we can consolidate the freedom we have recently won.
He was one of the great leaders of the Indian Renaissance. Like all the great
teachers of India,

Vivekananda did not profess to be the formulator of a new system of


thought. He interpreted for us and the world India’s religious consciousness,
the treasures of her past. His writings and speeches are all fortified by
quotations from the Indian scriptures and the life and sayings of his great
Master, that transcendent religious genius, Shri Ramakrishna.

In the short time at my disposal, it will not be possible for me to speak on


more than one or two aspects of Vivekananda’s teaching. The two dominant
features of our age are science and democracy. They have come to stay. We
cannot ask educated people to accept the deliverances of faith without
rational evidence. Whatever we are called upon to accept must be justified
and supported by reason. Otherwise, our religious beliefs will be reduced to
wishful thinking.

Modem man must learn ‘ to live with a religion which commends itself to his
intellectual conscience, to the spirit of science. Besides, religion should be
sustaining faith in democracy or race. Any religion which divides man from
man or supports privileges, exploitation, and wars, cannot commend itself to
us today. If we are passing through a period of the eclipse of religion, of the
light of heaven, it is because religions, as they are practised, seem to be
both unscientific and undemocratic. The most obvious fact of life is its
transcience.

Everything in this world passes away, the written word, the painted picture,
the carved stone, the heroic act. Great civilizations are subject to the law of
time. The earth on which we live may one day become unfit for human
habitation as the sun ages and alters. Our acts and thoughts, our deeds of
heroism, and our political structures are a part of history, of becoming, or
process. They all belong to the world of time. Time is symbolized in India’s
tradition by birth and death.

Is this world which is a perpetual procession of events, self-sustaining, self-


maintaining, self-established, or is there a Beyond underlying it, unifying It
and inspiring it, standing behind it and yet immanent in it? Is it becoming all
or is there being behind it? Will man annihilate nothingness or will
nothingness annihilate him? This very problem, this dread, this anxiety that
we have, this feeling of the precariousness of the world bears witness to the
world beyond. It is a longing for life eternal in the midst of time. Because of
the implicit awareness of the ultimate reality, we have a sense of
godforsakenness.

Religion and science are interrelated (ଆନ୍ତଃସମ୍ପର୍କିତ) because modem


man must leam to live with religion with his intellectual conscience and the
spirit of science.

PART – II

By logical investigations and by personal experience, our great thinkers


came to the conclusion that there is a Beyond of which all this world is the
expression. The Upanisads give us an explanation of this fundamental
problem. They mention logical arguments and also experiences of men who
bear witness to the reality of the Supreme. What we call the Vedas are
merely the registers of the spiritual experiences of the great seer.

Says Vivekananda: ‘By the Vedas, no books are meant. They mean the
accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons at
different times. They are therefore ever-expanding. What is built forever is
forever building. For Vivekananda religion is Yoga. It is personal change,
adjustment, and integration. It is not the profession of a doctrine. It is the
reconditioning of one’s nature.

It is not intellectual orthodoxy. It is the awakening of the life of the spirit in


man. He wrote books on Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Karma Yoga
and urged that the goal of spiritual realization can be reached by any one of
these different methods. When we express the truths of spiritual life in
intellectual forms, these latter are abstractions from the live experience.
They do not deal justly with the immensity and mystery of spiritual life.

If we exalt the particular creeds over the universal truths, we tend to become
intolerant. Intolerance is an expression of religious conceit and not humility.
We today speak of our secular attitude. We are not secular in the sense that
we are indifferent to religion. We are secular because we regard all religions
as sacred. We believe in freedom of conscience. Each soul has the right to
choose its own path and seek God in its own way. Secularism requires us not
merely to tolerate, but to understand and love other religions.
Bearing in mind Shri Ramakrishna’s experience, Vivekananda said: ‘We
Hindus do not merely tolerate. We unite ourselves with every religion,
praying in the mosque of the Mohammedan, worshipping before the fire of
the Zoroastrian and kneeling to the Cross of the Christian.’ In his travels
abroad, Vivekananda felt miserable about the backwardness of India in
several matters, the way in which religion is confused with so much
obscurantism and superstition. He protested vehemently against the abuse
of religion, about our insistence ability untouchability.

All this was inconsistent with the great principle of our religion that the
Divine is in us, in all of us, operative and alive, ready to come to the surface
at the first suitable opportunity. The light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world, this cannot be put out. Whether we like it or not,
whether we know it or not, the Divine is in us, and the end of man consists of
attaining union with the Divine.

The ultimate tests of true religions are the recognition of truth and
reconciliation with human beings. To overcome enemies we must possess
that which far surpasses enmity, ahimsa or renunciation of hatred.
Vivekananda raises work to the level of worship and exhorted us to seek
salvation through the service of God in man. If we in our country are to profit
from the teachings of Vivekananda. It is essential that we should all be
interested in not only constructive work but become dedicated spirits, spirits
dedicated to the task of establishing a spiritual religion which transcends
ecclesiastical organizations and doctrinal sophistries and subtleties, a
religion which leads to the transformation of human society and brings it
nearer to the Ramrajya or the Kingdom of God, which our prophets have set
before us.

A speech by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan

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