The Semitic religions which are founded on faith and absolute inviolable and irrational assertions contrary to the findings of modern science have a bleak future in a world increasingly dominated by science and reason. The Vedanta which is an absolutely sound philosophical system and spiritual to its very depths seems to be the reasonable option for enlightened future humanity to adopt as their spiritual and philosophical anchor to navigate through life's vicissitudes. This was the stated position in this matter of none other than the great Swami Vivekananda as he elaborated on this theme in his celebrated lecture 'Is Vedanta the Future Religion?' delivered in San Francisco on April 8, 1900. However, Swamiji was very measured in his hope as to the immediate success of the Vedanta for it would have to run contrary to the existing superstitions of the day that ran in the name of religion and also on account of the fact that the Vedanta being an abstruse philosophy was rather hard to comprehend for the average man with his commonplace intelligence. He imagined that the United States of America with its democratic structure of society and governance might be at a distant date the fittest country that could en masse accept the Vedanta as its spiritual lifeline. He had warned that very often in the past in India the Vedanta had got mixed up with variants of dualism and its superstitions and the essence of the philosophy had been lost on the masses entirely. If through the progress of civilisation the rational mode of thinking could be permeated in society, then the Vedanta stood a good chance of penetrating the mass psychology of America. To that end the Swami had expended his life's brightest years and detonated his spiritual explosives across the length and breadth of the nation whose fruition he prophesied would for sure take place even if centuries hence when society would 'have to veer around' to this pristine philosophy born in the ancient land of Bharatvarsha.
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