Skip to main content

Why religion should be tamed



While reading Shashi Tharoor’s latest book, Why I am a Hindu, I got stuck at a quote from Swami Vivekananda. “Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it,” goes the quote from a speech delivered by the great Hindu in Chicago. “Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas and tries to compel society to adopt them.” Swami Vivekananda then went on to compare religious teachings to a coat. Truth is like a coat of a fixed size for most religions. The size is fixed by the Rabbi or Pope or Mullah or Godman. Whoever you are, you have to wear that coat. Never mind the hilarious look it may give you because it just doesn’t suit you. You have to wear it if you want to belong to this religion. The meaning of religion is accepting the given truths blindly. Don’t question. Don’t dispute. Don’t doubt. Just accept. Accept what is shoved down your throat.

“The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realized, or thought of, or stated through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols – so many pegs to hang spiritual ideas on.” Swami Vivekananda told his American “Sisters and brothers.” [Yes, he addressed them as Sisters and brothers, giving prominence to women long before the West thought of doing it.]

The Hindu can cut the cloth and stitch the coat that suits him. In other words, the Hindu can worship any god. She can worship Rama or Ravana. He can worship Durga or Mahishasura. She can worship Jesus or Allah. Hinduism is all about liberating people to their own gods and not at all about enslaving them to a monolithic creed as most other religions do.

No wonder the Americans sat down and listened to Swami Vivekananda with admiration. The British were later stupefied by Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of tolerance and non-violence. The Swami and the Mahatma are the real spirits of Hinduism. What do we find today, however?

Hollow speeches. Empty promises. Hatred. Violence. Mounting discontent. And glittering dresses, foreign trips with a retinue of chefs topped with the usual logorrhoea.

Can we not change this?

Download this free ebook here




Comments

  1. UnknownMay 23, 2018 at 11:00 PM

    Did not understand swami s words.a Hindu doesn't worship ravana

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 24, 2018 at 6:45 AM

      "Ravana is also worshiped by Hindus in some part of the India, Sri Lanka and Bali (Indonesia.)[4][5][6] He is considered to be the most revered devotee of Shiva. Images of Ravana are seen associated with Shiva at some places. He also appears in Buddhist Mahayana text Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, and Buddhist Ramayanas and Jatakas, as well as in Jain Ramayanas."

      That's from Wikipedia. Well, Vivekananda didn't use all those names; I did, having understood the Swami's spirit.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
11 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...
10 comments
Read more

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...
8 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more