Preaching the Vedanta while pandering to the vanities of the laity with all their baggage of worldly dreams is a travesty in terms and makes a mockery of this great science discovered by the sages of India millenia ago. Worldliness allowed and renunciation diluted in principle and in practice by teaching men how they may harmonise their worldly lives with this science of the Self is dealing death-blows to the Upansihadic wisdom. The blazing renunciation required for the realisation of the Self is being toned down to suit householders of East and West alike for commercial gains and for a foothold in a competitive field of the spiritual industry and it is shameful that all religious organisations are party to this desperate game of self-survival. This is reducing the pristine principles of the Perennial Philosophy (Sanatan Dharma/Hinduism) to the puerile prattle of propagators and the audience is being misled into believing that even realisation of the supreme Truth may be easily come by without the giving up of the worldly life after all. Such a compromise with truth is a cancerous growth in society today as unrealised souls are sent across the seas to preach the truths of the Vedanta in the light of their partial and refracted understanding. It seems that Swami Vivekananda has, after all, been badly let down as a series of preachers after him, barring a handful, have made a sham of the teachings of the ancient texts of the Hindus. Time it is, indeed, for a course-correction and a return to roots instead of reposing faith in new-age preachers with scant idea of what they talk about in the name of the Vedanta.
Renunciation is the soul of religion and so shall it remain ever after. Worldliness will have to be given up completely if one has to come to religion and realisation. There is no other way. It it time that these preachers with levity as their chronic characteristic and an easygoing hyper-affability as their supposed behavioural forte realise that realisation is not a plaything and must not be, for truth's sake, made to appear to be so.
Written by Sugata Bose
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