THE OTHER SWAMIJI ... 1

THE OTHER SWAMIJI ... 1

Give up base imitation of the West. Stand firm on your own soil. But do not be a religious reactionary. Be progressive. Advance the cause of the masses. Educate them. Make them aware of life's inequalities, the iniquities that beset their development. Arouse their latent possibilities and march on to build a new India. Volcanic Vivekananda is the guide, Ramakrishna holds the torch ahead.

Build a new society based on the Vedanta which casts off privilege and establishes the dignity of man -- the very poorest of them -- feeds them, clothes them, gives them the rightful opportunities for due advancement. Mere philosophical preaching, mere charity that firmly entrenches the brutalising, exploitative order of things will not do. These must be swept overboard before any worthwhile social uplift is possible.

A massive, uncompromising spirituality must set in motion this inevitable change, not its compromising counterpart that makes common cause with the rich and the mighty. Power is in the masses but that power is latent and in a savage state. That power must be chastened even as it is awakened. Else, a barbaric revolution will drown civilisation in despair.

Swamiji must be read, understood, assimilated and activated on the firm basis of the spiritual realisation of the oneness of existence. It is a tall order, a mammoth task to reorganize Indian society but it must be done, and it must be done along the grain of its age-old natural development. Else, everything will be in vain and the old exploitative order will return with a vengeance, now renewed with further experience, spilling fresher venom onto society.

Yes, this aspect of Swamiji's teachings has been neglected and is being increasingly compromised by his followers on account of historical reasons, on account of dialectical contradictions, but time it is to heed Swamiji wholesale and not in preferred parts, neglecting nothing, nor spiritual, nor material aspects, nor anything that the Paramahamsa's protégé had chosen to give utterance to.

Written by Sugata Bose