Why Should We Think Of The Past? Swami Vivekananda

India is the ancient land where wisdom made its home before it went to any other country. Its rolling rivers and its towering mountains represent, as it were, its greatness on the material plane. Its soil has been trodden by the greatest sages that ever lived. The highest ideals of religions and philosophy have attained their culminating point here. From here waves of spirituality have again and again rushed out and deluged the world. It is the land that withstood the shock of hundreds of foreign invasions, of hundreds of upheavals of manners and customs, and yet stands firmer than ever with its undecaying vigor and indestructible life.

I refer you to the past of India, because its future is to take shape from that background. Out of the consciousness of our past greatness, we must build an India yet greater than what she has been. Periods of decadence there have been, but out of those India emerged always as something greater, as a mighty tree from a decayed fruit.

The problems of India are more complicated than those of any other country. Here there are people of diverse races speaking a conglomeration of languages and following manners and customs of utmost diversity. The one common ground we have is our sound traditions, our religion. There must be the recognition of one religion throughout the length and breadth of this land. But it is not in the sense Christians, the Mohammedans or the Buddhists think of religion. We have certain common grounds for all sects and within their limitation our religion admits a marvelous variation, infinite amount of liberty to think and live our own lives. People must be made aware of those common grounds in the first place. In India, we have no doubt, various differences of race, linguistic difficulties, social differences etc. But they melt away before the underlying power of religion. Our religion has been the keynote of Indian life, and therefore it is the line of least resistance for work in India. The unification of religion, therefore is the first step in building up of future India. The dualists, the qualified monists, Shaivas, Vaishnavas etc., must give up their little quarrels and differences which are really condemned by our scriptures and forbidden by our forefathers.

Our life-blood is spirituality. If it courses pure, strong and vigorous, everything will get right. If the disease germ is thrown out of the body, then the vitality of the body is reassured. In the same way when the national body is weakened, then all sorts of disease germs enter into the social, educational and political fields, crowd into the system and produce diseases. The source of vigor of our national life has always been our religion. Whether you like it or not, you are bound by it in all our attempts of national regeneration. I do not mean to say that other aspects of life, social, political etc., are not necessary or important. I mean only to say that they are only secondary while religion is primary. So if religion, the primary factor of our National life, is strengthened, all other aspects of our life too will be invigorated.

I shall now place before you some ideas that I have in mind about this. The great spiritual ideals of India have in the past been hidden in the monasteries and much more in the Sanskrit language, unknown to the masses of the country. So first of all these spiritual ideas should be brought out in the language of the people. But at the same time, vigorous attempt must be made to popularize Sanskrit among the masses; for knowledge can be given through any language, but what is culture can be imparted in India only through Sanskrit. Knowledge without culture is only skin-deep. So, for raising the masses, both these-interpretation of the scriptures in regional languages and at the same time propagation of Sanskrit-are necessary.

Next I want to discuss a problem that has special bearing on Madras. A theory has been propounded that there was a race of mankind in South India called Dravidians and that in North India called the Aryans, and the Brahmanas of the South are only the Aryans that came from North. Various theories of the original home of the Aryans are propounded by scholars according to their particular fancies. They are all guess-works prompted by pure imagination. There is nothing to prove that Aryans ever came to India from outside. So also is the theory that a few Aryans from the North settled down in the South and dominated over thousands of salves. This is an impossibility. The only explanation of these differences is what is found in Mahabharata that in the beginning of the Satya Yuga there was only one Varna, that of the Brahmana, and then by differences of occupations they went on dividing themselves into different castes. In the Satya Yuga that is to come, all these Varnas have to go back to the same original condition. So the solution of the caste problem in India assumes this form, not to degrade the higher caste but to raise everyone to the state of Brahamanhood. The Brahmana, the man of God, one who has the knowledge of the Vedas, must remain. But he has no claim for any exclusive privileges meant for a closed community. It is the claim for these exclusive privileges by the well-placed castes that drove a fifth of our countrymen to become Muslims, and another fifth is going to join Christians if the invidious distinctions of privileges are not done away with. In the past also, this process of uplifting lower caste to higher has been effected by the great Acharyas like Shankara, Ramanuja and others. Hordes of Baluchis and Tartars were made into Kshatriyas, and a number of fishermen into Brahmanas.

The dispute and conflict between castes must cease because they weaken the nation. He only is a Brahman who has no secular employment. It is the duty of the Brahmanas of India to remember what real Brahmanhood is. As Manu says, all these privileges and honors are given to Brahamans, because with him is the treasury of virtue. The other castes must remember that if they remain backward, it is only because they sat down lazily and let the Brahmanas win the race. But is one thing to gain an advanatge and another thing to reserve it for misuse. The Brahmana was the only trustee of the culture. He must have imparted it to the people at large, and it was because he did not do this that the Mohammedan invasion was possible. To the underprivileged I say, "Why do you fret and fume because somebody else has more brains, more energy, more pluck to go ahead than you?" In stead of wasting their energies in quarrels, let them absorb the culture of the Brahmanas, and this will take place if all people take to Sanskrit education, because Sanskrit and prestige go together in India.

The future of India depends entirely upon all its people working together with one will. Power is gained only through the concentrated will of a group of people. That is how small nations with united will have been able to dominate over vast masses of men, all divided among themselves. If all the dissesnsions based on the caste are allowed to continue, we as a nation cannot become strong.

The worship of the Virat is the greatest need of the country. The Virat is the manifested universe. For us our own country and our countrymen are the Virat. These we have to worship, instead of being jealous of each other and fighting with each other. Such worship brings about Chitta-Shuddhi or purification of the heart.

We must have a hold on the spiritual and secular education of the nation. The education that we are now getting may have some good points, but its defects overweigh. Then its entirely negative in nature. It teaches us that all your ancients were worthless men and that our past is a blank. The system of such education for last fifty years has not created any original men. In place of it, we want a man making education. Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain to remain there undigested all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and allowed them to enter and mould your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by a heart a whole library. This is a very big scheme that has to be properly planned.

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