#031, otherwise CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES WILL TAKE
Swami Vivekananda had great love for orphans. He wrote to Rakhal from Kashmir on Sept. 13, 1897.
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
1. 'Memorial' is to be read as 'memorandum'. 2. He wants orphans taken over by Christian missionaries to be returned to Hindus. 3. Do orphans have religion? He presumes them to be Hindus and wants them to be returned to Hindus. 4. Suppose if there were orphans known to be of Christian parentage, would he have taken them? 5. His entire campaign was based on religious hatred. Then what will happen to all he said in the World Parliament of Religions! 6. We can sympathize with Vivekananada in one respect. Christian missionaries were trying to spread their religion by imposing Christianity on orphans. He was trying to resist them. He was only reacting. 7. On the platform of World Parliament of Religions 1893 itself he could have said that Christian Missionaries were blatantly convering orphans and poor. He could not say that because he would have been booed down.
Swami Vivekananda wrote to his brother disciple Swami Akhandananda on the 21st February 1900 from California. He asked Akhandananda to shelter the orphan girls.
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
See the rider 'otherwise, Christian missionaries will take them, poor things away.' If Christian missionaries were not very active, Swamiji might have waited. Where is the genuine love for orphans?
What is the object of his whole exercise of service? Competing with Christian missionaries? Why should he consider them as his rivals? Is there any racing event of sprint or marathon between Vivekananda and the missionaries?
"...I have read the letter that you sent regarding Gangadhar. Write to him that there are many orphans in Central India and in Gorakhpur. From there the Punjabis are getting many children. You must persuade Mahendra Babu and get up an agitation about this matter, so that the people of Calcutta are induced to take up the charge of these orphans — such a movement is very desirable. Especially a memorial (sic) should be sent to the Government requesting it to see that orphans taken over by the missionaries are returned to the Hindus. Tell Gangadhar to come over; and on behalf of the Ramakrishna Society a tearing campaign should be made. Gird up your loins, and go to every house to carry on the campaign. Hold mass meetings etc. Whether you succeed or not, start a furious agitation. Get all the facts from the important Bengali friends at Gorakhpur by writing to them, and let there be a countrywide agitation over this. ..."
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
1. 'Memorial' is to be read as 'memorandum'. 2. He wants orphans taken over by Christian missionaries to be returned to Hindus. 3. Do orphans have religion? He presumes them to be Hindus and wants them to be returned to Hindus. 4. Suppose if there were orphans known to be of Christian parentage, would he have taken them? 5. His entire campaign was based on religious hatred. Then what will happen to all he said in the World Parliament of Religions! 6. We can sympathize with Vivekananada in one respect. Christian missionaries were trying to spread their religion by imposing Christianity on orphans. He was trying to resist them. He was only reacting. 7. On the platform of World Parliament of Religions 1893 itself he could have said that Christian Missionaries were blatantly convering orphans and poor. He could not say that because he would have been booed down.
Swami Vivekananda wrote to his brother disciple Swami Akhandananda on the 21st February 1900 from California. He asked Akhandananda to shelter the orphan girls.
"... If orphan girls happen to come to your hands for shelter, you must take them in above all else. Otherwise, Christian missionaries will take them, poor things, away !... "
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
See the rider 'otherwise, Christian missionaries will take them, poor things away.' If Christian missionaries were not very active, Swamiji might have waited. Where is the genuine love for orphans?
What is the object of his whole exercise of service? Competing with Christian missionaries? Why should he consider them as his rivals? Is there any racing event of sprint or marathon between Vivekananda and the missionaries?
Comments
I am myself getting tired of digging the material out because sometimes I am forced to sympathise Vivekananda and sometimes treat him just as ordinary as we are.
from ambedkars "philosophy of hinduism"
The philosophy of the Upanishads can be stated in very few words. It has been well summarised by Huxley[f29] when he says that the Upanishad philosophy agreed:—
"In supposing the existence of a permanent reality, or `substance', beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind. The substance of the cosmos was `Brahma', that of the individual man `Atman'; and the latter was separated from the former only, if I may so speak, by its phenomenal envelope, by the casing of sensations, thoughts and desires, pleasures and pains, which make up the illusive phantasmagoria of life. This the ignorant, take for reality; their `Atman' therefore remains eternally imprisoned in delusions, bound by the fetters of desire and scourged by the whip of misery.
Of what use is this philosophy of the Upanishadas? The philosophy of the Upanishadas meant withdrawal from the struggle for existence by resort to asceticism and a destruction of desire by self-mortification. As a way of life it was condemned by Huxley[f30] in scathing terms :—
"No more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever been attempted than that achieved by the Indian ascetic anchorite; no later monarchism has so nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might run the risk of being confounded with idiocy."
But the condemnation of the philosophy of the Upanishads is nothing as compared to the denunciation of the same by Lala Hardyal[f31] :—
"The Upanishads claim to expound `that, by knowing which everything is known '. This quest for ' the absolute ' is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The treatises are full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations.