Vivekananda – A Rebel and a Conformist

As the nation celebrates the National Youth Day, we may recapitulate the relevance of Swami Vivekananda, whose birthday is celebrated in that name throughout the month of January. It has been more than a hundred and twenty years since he left his mortal body, but his relevance seems to be growing as the same threats confront society in diverse forms.

Vivekananda’s India was a colonized, demoralized and economically looted India. It was colonized both politically and intellectually. The mightiest minds were at crossroads reevaluating the long-held civilizational values. A similar dilemma was faced by Vivekananda, who was influenced by western philosophy by the time he approached Ramakrishna, the great sage. It was here that an intense churning of conflicting ideas took place, giving rise to a strong personality, who was a rebel at one level and a conformist at another. He was a rebel on some social issues, and a conformist at the philosophical level.

This was because what we call Sanatana dharma, is in fact, at two levels – the pravritti dharma and the nivritti dharma. Sri Shankaracharya describes them in his introduction to his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. The first one is at the social level, describing a person’s role in society, duties assigned to him based on his svabhava (innate nature depending on sattva, rajas and tamas) and how he contributes to public good by following his aptitude. The nivritti dharma, on the other hand, relates to spiritual practices such as control of senses and mind, meditation, devotion, other acts of self-purification and contemplation on the nature of Supreme Reality. This was not the prerogative of one section of society, but it was for all. A person who did not study the scriptures, learnt the same from other texts such as the Gita or Bhagavatam.

Vivekananda saw the aberrations which had crept into society in pravritti dharma and fought bitterly against them. But he championed the greatness of the nivritti dharma, which is the essence of Sanatana dharma, universal and egalitarian in nature. It is this dharma which he proudly represented in the parliament of religions in Chicago in 1895. What he spoke in Chicago was the essence of the Gita and the Upanishads, not a word more. He related the essence of those texts in a language understandable by the west.

Back in India, he relentlessly fought the social aberrations – untouchability, the caste prejudices which left bitterness in the minds of millions. These are certainly not our civilizational values according to the Upanishads. What should be done in such a situation? Complete rejection of Sanatana dharma would be like throwing the baby with the bathwater. This is done by the Marxists even now, the latest being an assault by the Chief Minister of Kerala. But Marxism is just an ideology to fight and destroy but not a philosophy for human fulfilment.

Vivekananda understood such philosophies and the journey of intolerant religious doctrines which combined imperialism, with consequences like genocides and slavery. He proclaimed that Sanatana dharma was the formula for world peace.

We may note that what he was championing was the dharma of the Upanishads but not the dharma of the dharma texts, which he fought strongly. One can see that Vivekananda was influenced equally by Vedanta and Buddhist thoughts. It is for this reason that Ambedkar too, did not reject the civilizational ideals of India, while he opposed Hinduism which, unfortunately, still does not clarify about the changes needed at social level. What is really eternal in Sanatana dharma is the aspect of nivritti dharma relating to the spiritual journey of a seeker.

Threats to civilization were external in the time of Vivekananda, but they are both internal and external now. By quirk of fate such threats are faced by the western nations now and the intellectuals are having a churn in their minds. Richard Dawkins, a confirmed atheist and a prolific writer, says that while he still rejects Christianity as religion, he loves the Christian civilizational values. Sanatan baiters may do some honest soul searching.

(The writer is a former

DGP, Andhra Pradesh)