Swami Vivekananda on the Essence of Hinduism

Swami Vivekananda is the Patriot-Saint of India. His spiritual mission was to resurrect and re-orient Hinduism to the understanding of the modern minds and put her back as the Mother of Religions, as he declared in the Chicago Parliament of Religions. In the world at large, Hinduism came to be dishonoured and in India it was lost to the nation which had become mostly atheistic. 'In India', says Swamiji, 'there are said to be three hundred millions of Vedantins. But if there were one in a thousand who had actually realised religion, this world would soon be greatly changed We are all atheists, and yet we try to fight the man who admits it. We are all in the dark, religion is to us a mere intellectual assent a mere talk a mere nothing."

Swamiji regrets that in modern India the spirit of religion is gone; only the externals remain. The people are neither Hindus nor Vedantists. He says: In religion there came most horrible degradations. What can you expect of a race which for hundreds of years has been busy in discussing such momentous problems as whether we should drink a glass of water with the right hand or le? What more degradation can there be than that the greatest minds of a country have been discussing about the kitchen for several hundreds of years, discussing whether I may touch you or you touch me, and what is the penance for this touching? The themes of the Vedanta, the sublimest and the most glorious conceptions of God and soul ever preached on earth, were half-lost, burried in the forests, preserved by a few sannyasins, while the rest of the nation discussed the momentous questions of touching each other, and dress and food.

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