The Background, the Reality, of everyone is that same Eternal, Ever Blessed, Ever Pure, and Ever Perfect One. It is the Atman, the Soul, in the saint and the sinner, in the happy and the miserable, in the beautiful and the ugly, in men and in animals; it is the same throughout. It is the Shining One.
- Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, II/168

The Upanishads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the whole world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them. They will call with trumpet voice to the weak, the miserable and the downtrodden of all races, all creeds and all sects, to stand on their feet and be free. Freedom, physical freedom, mental freedom and spiritual freedom are the watchwords of the Upanishads.
- Ibid., III/238

Teach yourselves, teach everyone his real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.
- Ibid., III/193

Refreshing and Life-giving Tenets of Vedanta

Max Muller, who spent his whole life studying Vedanta, told us what the West can learn from Vedanta:

If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow---in some parts a very paradise on earth---I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant---I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life---again I should point to India.
- Quoted from author's "Journey of the Upanishads to the West", p. 281

Schopenhauer also greatly valued the impact on the West of Vedanta, "the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones." Schopenhauer made the following prediction: "I believe that the influence of the Sanskrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century" (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, [London, 1957], Volume 1, XII-XIII) I

Vedanta can significantly help human beings get out of the death trap into which the modern global village and its consumerism have lured them. Vedanta is concerned with timeless Truth. Hence, it is universal. With its cosmopolitan and humanistic appeal, Vedanta has attracted the loving attention of thoughtful minds because it does not require submission to any authority, whether it is a prophet, a teacher, or scripture.

According to Vedanta, the truth has not been revealed "once and for all." The facets of infinite truth are also infinitely expressed. They cannot be compressed into a sealed book. Therefore, Vedanta encourages freedom of thought. Its passion, catholicity and scientific temper combined make Vedanta dynamic---a living philosophy, invigorated with fresh insights. Its acceptance of diversity prevents it from becoming oppressive and monotonous, static or insipid. It does not pigeonhole Truth into a single creed, recommending instead various helpful disciplines suitable for growth in different individuals. Vedanta grants wide latitude for personal choice in religion. That is why, within Hinduism, we find religious expression in a bewildering variety of schools of philosophy, sects and rituals, beliefs and forms of worship.

Its fundamental teachings include: (1) the impersonality and universality of Supreme Truth; (2) the Divinity of the soul; (3) the unity of existence, or the oneness of matter and energy, or the ultimate oneness of God, man and nature; (4) the harmony of religions; (5) the immanence and transcendence of God who is both the material and the efficient cause of the universe; (6) the cyclic theory of Creation; and (7) Mukti or total freedom from weakness, i.e., spiritual union with the Divine during one's lifetime. Because these are the eternal teachings of Vedanta, Vedanta is also referred to as the "Eternal Religion" or Sanatana Dharma.

A Way of Life and a View of Life

Vedanta's assurance of joy, strength, faith and vision in life and its call for devotion, fellow feelings and dedication are of momentous importance today. Swami Vivekananda's clarion call to mankind to realize the oneness of existence---the oneness of God, man and nature---through a living spiritual idealism, is the "new religion of the age." The discrimination between one person and another originates from ignorance. Properly nurtured, the spiritual impulse in us matures. We learn to abide by ethical principles and become the friends of humanity. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," says Jesus Christ (Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31). Swami Vivekananda shines a floodlight on this point:

The infinite oneness of the Soul is the eternal sanction of all morality, that you and I are not only brothers---every literature voicing man's struggle towards freedom has preached that for you---but that you and I are really one. This is the dictate of Indian philosophy. This oneness is the rationale of all ethics and all spirituality.
- Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. III, p. 189

Science and technological revolution have created our modem global village. It is based on secular fulfillment of enjoyment and profit. The human being is basically the divine encased within the human body-mind complex. Unless spiritual food is given for the nourishment of the starving soul, unless higher direction of human fulfillment is given, these modern plagues of our global village in the form of rootlessness, restlessness, crime and all the ills of our lower impulses cannot be checked. Here, Vedanta plays a role in checking modem ills and restoring balance, sanity and the security of life based on spiritual culture. In one of his lectures, Swami Vivekananda said:

My ideal can indeed be put into few words and that is to preach unto mankind their inherent divinity and how to manifest it in every movement of life.
- Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 501

Hence, Vedanta comes to play a great role to the suffering humanity by providing them the higher direction to nurture the spirit. Hence, a new culture based on spirituality will be immensely beneficial to the restless and confused humanity.

It is culture that withstands shocks, not a simple mass of knowledge. . . We all know, in modem times, of nations which have masses of knowledge; but what of them? They are like tigers, they are like savages because culture is not there. Knowledge is only skin-deep, as civilization is, and a little scratch brings out the old savage; teach the masses in the vernaculars, give them ideas, they will get information, but something more is necessary, give them culture. Until you give them that there can be no permanence in the raised condition of the masses.
- Ibid., Vol. III, p. 291

Mind in the West

". . .in the West, psychology is placed on the same plane as all other sciences; that is, it is judged by the same criterion---utility"
- Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 28

"What we call Manas, the mind, the Western people call soul. The West never had the idea of soul until they got it through Sanskrit philosophy, some twenty years ago."
- Ibid., Vol. III, p. 126

"Man is thus his own greatest mystery. He does not understand the vast veiled universe into which he has been cast for the reason that he does not understand himself."
- Lincoln Barnnet, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, Mentor Edition, pp. 120-22

"Until not many years ago, the existence of a mind or soul would have been passionately denied by most physical scientists. The brilliant success of mechanistic and, more generally, macroscopic physics, and of chemistry, overshadowed the obvious fact that thoughts, desires, and emotions are not made of matter and it was nearly universally accpted among physical scientists that there is nothing besides matter."
- Eugene Wigner, Physicist and Nobel Laureate

Mind is an infant science in the West. "The natural history of the mind is no further advanced today than was natural science in the thirteenth century. We have only begun to take scientific note of our spiritual experiences" (C. G. lung). In the Western view, man consists of body and soul. Here, soul is synonymous with mind, ego and consciousness. In the West, generally no distinction is made between mind and soul. Soul refers only to the different forms of experiences of a normal human being. This is the general idea in all non-Hindu spiritual traditions.

Vedanta helps rationally minded persons by drawing their attention to the immortal existence of the soul within the body. This pure immortal soul is never tainted by the impurities of mind, nor is it saved by the grace of a savior. When impurity is removed, the bliss of the immortal Self is spontaneously experienced. In the West, soul is not a transcendent entity. It is created. Hence, the impurities of the mind taint the soul, which is mind, thereby requiring the grace of a savior. The Self of Vedanta is not a created entity; the soul in the West is created. The doctrine of the eternal, pure, self-luminous and infinite Self was developed in Vedanta alone. In this connection we like to quote Swami Vivekananda:

Every theory of the creation of the soul from nothing inevitably leads to fatalism and preordination, and instead of a Merciful Father, places before us a hideous, cruel, and an ever--angry God to worship. And so far as the power of religion for good or evil is concerned, this theory of a created soul leading to its corollaries of fatalism and predestination, is responsible for the horrible idea prevailing among some Christians and Mohammedans that the heathens are the lawful victims of their swords and all the horrors that have followed and are following it still.
- C.W. IV, p. 270

In the Christian view, the soul's survival of death is essentially miraculous, The soul is conceived as coming into existence with the birth of the body, and the thing to be expected is that it should perish when the body perishes. This is prevented through the intervention of God who steps in to receive the soul and confer upon it an immortality which, left to itself, it could never attain. In India all this is changed. The soul's immortality has never been thought there to be dependent upon any supernatural interference or miraculous event, nor even upon God. There are atheistic philosophers in India, but they are as thoroughly convinced of the eternal life of the soul as are the monists or theists. For in India the soul is essentially immortal. Eternity is in its very nature.
- Dr. James B. Prat, The Religious Consciousness

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Books by Swami Tathagatananda (organized by the year of publication):

1. The Light from the Orient, 2005
2. The Journey of the Upanishads to the West, 2003
3. The Vedanta Society of New York -- A Brief History, 2000
4. Mahabharat--Katha (Bengali), 1998
5. Ramayan Anudhyan (Bengali), 1996
6. Healthy Values of Living, 1996
7. Meditation on Swami Vivekananda, 1994
8. Meditation on Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, 1993
9. Albert Einstein and His Human Face, 1993
10. Glimpses of Great Lives, 1989
11. Shubha Chinta (Bengali), 1988
12. Smaran--Manan (Bengali), 1987

You can order these books from The Vedanta Society of New York.

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