NO DILUTION PLEASE

NO DILUTION PLEASE

Swami Vivekananda must be absorbed without dilution of his strong message which is spiritual and nothing but so. All attempts to compromise his message to suit material convenience must be shunned. 

There is no intersection between the limited material life one clings to and the far less limited spiritual living which the sage preaches, although in his view Vedanta must in its practical application embrace the whole of life and transform it. But Swami Vivekananda is equally emphatic that there is no liaison between light and shade, between sense life and spiritual life, between the little self and the majestic Self which we must seek if we are to become sincere adherents of the message of the Vedanta whose soul is renunciation. Unfortunately, this propensity to dilute, to tailor the infinite to finite proportions of daily necessity destroys through frequent abuse the very soul of the sublime message of the masters. Worldliness somehow manages to get under the skin of the spiritual message and contaminates it to its loss of original identity in the minds of the masses. This Swamiji has categorically warned us against and we must heed his word of caution. 

Swamiji stands as the luminous exemplar of what he preaches, as the embodiment of Sanatan Dharma's perennial message. He must be absorbed wholly and not in fractional terms even if we fail to live up to its grand requirements. But Swamiji's message must, even in our failure to fully implement it in our lives, shine in its pristine purity, ever beckoning us on to reach the supernal heights we are destined in due course to attain. 

The central theme then is: Dilute not the message but keep aspiring for its fullest manifestation in life despite countless failures on the way. In the end victory shall be yours, for Swamiji did deliver the Vedanta suited to modern terms. Hence, do not tailor it otherwise to suit your petty personal convenience. 🕉

Written by Sugata Bose