Topic started by vaidyanathan (@ 203.197.138.167) on Thu Aug 21 06:55:12 .
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I HAVE QUOTED BELOW VIVEKANDA'S SPEECHES IN VARIOUS PLACES THOUGH NOT IN EXACT WORDS BUT WITH MEANING CERTAINLY THE SAME
1.vivekanda on aryan dravidian question-make the north and south indians to stand together.pick people of the same colour and ask an outsider to decide who is a brahmin and who is not?who is an aryan and who is not?
the real truth is that in the satya yuga there were only brahmins .as time went by people subdivided into castes based on occupations,learning and culture.
2.Vivekanda on buddhism-though i have the greatest respect for buddha the deterioration in indian culture that we see today is because of buddhism.buddhism spread not so much by the great teachings of buddha but by the huge temples and images of buddha and his life that is seen everywhere.the result was a deterioration in buddhism and its monks,things went so bad that i cannot talk about them in front of this audience,complete corruption of the buddhist organisation that resulted in its downfall.the monstrously large temples that we see in the south is due to the impact of buddhism.then came adi shankara who preached the nectar of vedanta and simplicity in life.he believed in evolution not in erradication
of practises.all the noble teachings of buddha i can conclude are already there in our upanishads.
3.vivekanda on brahmins- a lot of non brahmins have something to complain of the brahmins.let them ask - is it the fault of the brahmins that they are noble and virtuous and learned.is it their fault that they are god fearing?the non brahmins instead of finding fault should look within themselves.who asked them to be lazy and not pursue education?who asked them not to develop discipline and culture?learn from the good experience of the brahmins.
4.vivekananda on shudras becoming spiritual teachers-a lot of people place accusation on me saying that i am born a shudra.let me tell u this my guru was a person born in a great brahmin family.he cleaned and flushed the dirtiness of a shudra like me.such a great man taking up the role of a sewage cleaner.just like that i have taken up the task of cleaning your dirt.every body has to take up this task of cleaning each other up.so i dont see why i cant take up this lowest of profession of cleaning others dirt' if you may call it a low profession.
5.vivekanda on modern reformers-i understand your heart you reformers of madras.your acts are bound to fail.our culture has developed for thousand of years.thinking carefully i discovered the plan of our seers and i see it all right today.the plan was correct.it was based on the principle of evolution not on destruction.my country men you have all done very well over these thousands of years.i have visited various countries and people,i can certainly conclude that you indians are the kindest and the most virtuous of all the people in this world..but even as i say that we must do better strive towards an improvement in our people.evolution is thus the key to development.there is no point in replacing this great building by destroying it and replacing it with a structure whose strength is yet to be really proven.
6.vivekanda 's comparison of bengal and tamil nadu-there is one difference ,between the two people,today we see bengal reviving in culture,but in tamilnadu we are seeing an evolution of culture.
7.vivekanda's inspiration for patriotism-for the next fifty years your only deity of worship should be mother india.
8.vivekanda on ramanuja and chaitanya and buddha-all these people took great effort to reform and improve the state of the downtrodden lot.but within a 100 years their efforts came to fail.the blunder that they did was that in order to achieve quick results they brought the philosophical works into local language.sanskrit is the language of culture.there are great texts in sanskrit.if they had taught sanskrit to the low caste they would have got spiritualised and culture.the basis for caste would have been destroyed.some of the lower castes who learnt sanskrit got to the position of higher castes.
9.vivekanda on various hindu philosophical schools-advaita is one philosophy that relies only on vedanta.in the vedas that deal with the karma kanda we see the dualism of worship.but vedanta-the upanishads end in perfect advaita.in vedas it is declared that all worship is great because all gods are of one mind.advaita solely relies on vedanta for its arguments.even when a quotation is made from other texts it is merely to ellaborate a point already proven.as we move towards the dualistic texts we see more and more reliace on other texts in support of one's arguments to the extent that some schools come to rely on the puranas to the extent of 80%.a beautifull verse in the sacred vedanta -a bird starts moving nearer and nearer to another bird and feels that she herself is growing in size as she is moving towards the other bird.finally on reacing the other bird she has realised that she is none other than the reflection of the other bird.this illustrates why sri vaishnavas have the conceapt of expanding and contracting conceapt of atma.the dualism ,the qualified monism,monism is all there in our texts.so none is to be discouraged.
10.vivekanada on idol worship-when is started out like all i felt that idol worship was wrong.i found the critisism by judeo christianic people fair.a long time ago there were many jewish tribes each having a different god,as they faught each other the winner used to place his god at the top of the list of gods.this went on till they arrived at a monotheistic society.if a person can realise god without considering that he has form then fine but why should he critiscise those who indulge in idol worship when the greatest teacher and realised sage sri ramakrishna realised god through dualistic worship of idols.
11.vivekanda gave a death blow to the theosophists in india.quotation are unnnecessary in this regard.
12.vivekanda 's other famous quotes-the future that i see for india is that of a vedantic brain and an islamic body.we read in the past that many foreigners made fun of india as a land of people who never conquered others.an english lady said once to me -'what have you indians done.you have not conquered any other civilisation'.we all know the story of alexander.is it not that india has not conquered other countries,infact when they conquered us we infused them with our dose of spirituality and changed the world for the better.ask a man in the west about religion.his idea will be small.in india even an illiterate man will have some advice for u about religion.in india alone are mosques and churches allowed to coexist with temples.when i was going abroad,many people asked me how a sanyasin could go abroad?i replied that it is my duty to flood the world with spirituality.the people in america were extermely kind hearted.i could see that behind their smiling faces they were weeping in their hearts.i had to soothe them.the hindu is not to become a christian nor a christian a hindu or a muslim but we are all to take up the best in other religions and enrich our own.each civilisation has its plan has its stucture it is not to be destroyed.we may not understand it .on close examination i found out the brilliance of it all.let me add that it is easier to reach god playing football than spend whole day in a room in prayer.what we need is men of iron.healthy men only will have the stamina to pray.we need people with the heart of buddha and the intellect of shankara.everyone should keep in their mind the following phrase-arise awake and i shall not rest till i die.
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