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Mr. Chairman and friends:
I am indeed grateful for being allowed to add my voice to those of illustrious speakers on this platform. We are celebrating 100 years of an important
event in the history, not only of religion, but of human civilisation. It was an important event because for the first time in human affairs people speaking on behalf of different major religious traditions around
the world, met in one place and at the same time in an effort to communicate to each other and to express their spiritual ideals in a vision of hope for humanity. And this was done on the whole seemingly in a spirit
of friendship and sympathy. This is not a small matter. So we may say that the Chicago Parliament of Religions was a serious exercise in the sympathetic communication of spiritual visions emerging from long
traditions of religious striving and wisdom around the world. As such it was a highly significant event in the history of human civilisation, and it is proper to commemorate its centenary and to take stock of the
human situation today in the light of this event. For this I congratulate the vision of the organisers, especially Swami Lokeshwaranda and the Ramakrishna Mission.
But why are we meeting here, in Calcutta? Because of the remarkable impact of a remarkable man an that event 100 years ago. By all accounts it was
Swami Vivekananda - an Indian, a nationalist, a visionary, a Bengali, and a creator of the Ramakrishna Order - who took the Chicago Parliament by storm. For a young an of 30, relatively unknown, coming from a land
of subject people politically and still confused nationalist aspirations, to journey overseas to a completely different environment and to stand up before an assembly of the great and the good who had no idea what
to expect, and to win them over, must have called for enormous courage and self-belief.
For understandable reasons, the time allotted to me is short, so my points must be brief. I hope that we are not simply celebrating an extraordinary
achievement that is a thing of the past. Does Vivekananda live on? Does not his influence endure today? Does he continue to speak to us right now - to Indian and non-Indian alike, to Hindu and non-Hindu, to men and
women, young and old, religious and non-religious? That is the test of the man.
I believe that Vivekananda passes this test, and that he has something very important to say to us today. What gave him that enormous self-belief, and
what launched him on his meteoric career at the Chicago meeting a hundred years ago? The answer to the one was his religious faith, and the answer to the other was his powerful ability to communicate his spiritual
vision of unity for the human race in a sincere and non-partisan way.
Vivekananda did not offer soft opinions. He did not speak to please. His message was not a vague, "Believe what you wish, do what you want: just
try and be good". On the contrary, he made no compromise in his belief that human beings have a spiritual core which is most important to understand and to seek, that Advaita or monism is the heart not only of Hindu religion but of all true religiousness, that we must renounce ourselves to find ourselves. It is hard to take even some of this on board, especially in a "feel-good" society which does not like talk of renunciation. We may agree or disagree with Vivekananda´s views, but surely it is incumbent on us too to adopt an approach to the other that comes across as open, tolerant and concerned. Vivekananda seemed to care for the welfare of the whole human being, body and soul, in a practical and down-to-earth manner. He invited people to consider his views, even if they did not wish to share them all, in a manner that respected their otherness, and that did not belittle their own beliefs or humiliate them personally.
Vivekananda did not say :"Your view is wrong and my view is right. Your religion is a tissue of errors and falsehood whereas my faith is the true
one, so convert to my religion". On the contrary, in his speech on Hinduism at Chicago on September 19th, 1893, he said :"To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth,
from lower to higher truth...the whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal". So being religious is
being a spiritual traveller, and fulfilling our humanity is making a journey.
This is a very different tone taken from that of so many religious people, especially religious leaders and guides, who talk as if they have already
arrived. Even a non-religious person can appreciate the breadth of spirit that can utter such words as Vivekananda´s. And one does not have to be religious to see that his is a far better approach in situations of
difference and discord than the one of contemptuous dismissal with its accompaniments of verbal, psychological or physical violence. This graciousness towards the other Vivekananda imbibed from his spiritual master, Ramakrishna.
Look about you, friends, and you will readily see that we live in a fragmented world. Cherished structures are breaking up. There is communal and
racial tension; family values are disintegrating; greed and corruption make it difficult to live honestly, and the threat of one form or other of violence fills the earth. As you all know, India is no exception in
any of this. Though our problems have taken on a new face since Vivekananda´s time, his message is still relevant: look to a spiritual vision of human unity; have hope for its fulfilment; stand your ground and share
your vision but in a way that does not threaten the integrity of the other.
Let us say, "If only another Vivekananda were in our midst in our homes, in our societies, in our countries - we could make a new, hopeful
start". This would be to betray the memory of Vivekananda. It would be to give up our own responsibility for our future and our loved ones. To be true to Vivekananda´s spirit, we must strive to follow his
courage, his breadth of vision, his graciousness to the other. If each one of us here resolved to walk this path we would slowly but surely change first our own worlds and then the world we share together for the
better. We would then begin to sense a profound harmony amid the differences of human affairs.
Vivekananda was not a conformist. His concept of world harmony was not a simplistic one, everybody and everything playing the same tune. Rather, he
understood and expected difference and affirmed it. He realised that the freedom for difference - in culture, in belief, in faith, in practice - was necessary for a more subtle but lasting expression of harmony than
the so-called harmony of uniformity. Let me conclude, then, with Vivekananda´s words during his Final Address to the Chicago gathering: "A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony (of our
meeting). My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter... The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist (or a Muslim or Jew, we might add), nor a
Hindu or a Buddhist (or a Muslim or Jew) to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth". Friends, this
is a good advice; let us follow it.
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