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Showing posts from October 10, 2007

#90, In America there is the best scope for caste to develop

Swami Vivekananda believed in caste system. One gets an impression that at some places in his Complete Works he supported the Birth-caste system and at some other placed denigrated it. We get an impression of his getting confused. He wrote from Chicago, to Justice Sir Subrahmanya Iyer, his PLan of Action for India. "... In Sanskrit, Jaati, i.e. species. Now, this is the first idea of creation. Variation (Vichitrataa), that is to say Jati, means creation. "I am One, I become many" (various Vedas). Unity is before creation, diversity is creation. Now if this diversity stops, creation will be destroyed. So long as any species is vigorous and active, it must throw out varieties. When it ceases or is stopped from breeding varieties, it dies. Now the original idea of Jati was this freedom of the individual to express his nature, his Prakriti, his Jati, his caste; and so it remained for thousands of years. Not even in the latest books is inter-dining prohibited; nor in any ...

#089, Swami Vivekananda wanted to have bali done

Vivekananda wrote to Ms. Christina Greenstidel from Belur Math on Nov. 12, 1901, that they sacrificed a goat to Goddess Durga. But the Belur Math has a different story to tell. According to its website: http://www.belurmath.org/durga_puja/article_on_durga_puja.htm " ...It is customary to perform bali or animal sacrifice at this sacred juncture. When the first Durga Puja was celebrated at Belur Math in 1901, Swami Vivekananda wanted to have bali done . But Holy Mother prohibited it and, in obedience to Holy Mother's injunction, animal sacrifice is never done at Belur Math. Instead, a banana is ‘sacrificed' as a symbolic bali..." BLOGGER'S VIEW Vivekananda confirmed the goat's sacrifice at the Math. He also boasted about celebrations of the worship with fireworks. If both Mother Sarada Devi and Swamiji were correct, we have to deduce that Swamiji got the goat sacrificed later without the knowledge of the Mother. But the Belur Math is denying i...