From a mail - which I had shared with my friend Mohan several years ago.
A pandit asked Swami Vivekananda if there was any harm in giving up sandhyavandanam or prayers performed in the morning, noon and evening, which he had had to do for lack of time. "What!" cried out the swami, almost with ferocity, "Those giants of old, the ancient rishis, who never walked, but strode -the likes of whom, if you are to think [of] for a moment, you would be shriveled into a moth - they, sir, had time and you have none!"… When a Westernized Hindu spoke in a belittling manner of the "meaningless teachings" of the Vedic seers, the swami fell upon him with thunderbolt vehemence, crying out, "Man, a little learning has muddled your brain! How dare you criticize your venerable forebears, how dare you bastardize the blood of the rishis in your veins by speaking in such a fashion! Have you tested the science of the rishis? Have you even so much as read the Vedas? There is the challenge thrown by the rishis! If you dare oppose them, take it up, put their teachings to the test, and they shall not be found wanting! What is making this race contemptible is just such intellectual bigotry and lop-sidedness as you manifest!"(51)
What do we want in India? If foreigners want [the teachings of the Upanishads] we want them twenty times more. Because, in spite of the greatness of the Upanishads, in spite of our boasted ancestry of sages, I must tell you that, compared with many other races, we are weak, very weak. First of all is our physical weakness. That physical weakness is the cause of at least one third of our miseries. We are lazy, we cannot work, we cannot combine, we do not love each other; we are intensely selfish, no three of us can come together without hating each other, without being jealous of each other. That is the state in which we are - hopelessly disorganized mobs, immensely selfish, fighting each other for centuries as to whether a certain mark is to be put on our foreheads this way or that, writing volumes and volumes upon such momentous questions as to whether the look of someone spoils my food or not! This we have been doing for the past few centuries. We cannot expect anything from a race whose whole brain energy has been occupied in such wonderfully beautiful problems and researches! And are we not ashamed of ourselves? Ay, sometimes we are; but though we think these things frivolous, we cannot give them up. We speak of many things parrot-like, but never do them; speaking and not doing has become a habit with us. What is the cause of that? Physical weakness. This sort of weak brain is not able to do anything; we must strengthen it.(52)
What we want, is this Shraddha. Unfortunately, it has nearly vanished from India, and this is why we are in our present state. What makes the difference between man and man is the difference in this Shraddha and nothing else. What make one man great and another weak and low is this Shraddha. My Master used to say, he who thinks himself weak will become weak, and that is true. This Shraddha must enter into you. Whatever of material power you see manifested by the Western races is the outcome of this Shraddha, because they believe in their muscles and if you believe in your spirit, how much more will it work! Believe in that infinite soul, the infinite power, which, with consensus of opinion, your books and sages preach. That Atman which nothing can destroy, in It is infinite power only waiting to be called out. For here is the great difference between all other philosophies and the Indian philosophy. Whether dualistic, qualified monistic, or monistic, they all firmly believe that everything is in the soul itself; it has only to come out and manifest itself. Therefore, this Shraddha is what I want, and what all of us here want, this faith in ourselves, and before you is the great task to get that faith. Give up the awful disease that is creeping into our national blood, that idea of ridiculing everything, that loss of seriousness. Give that up. Be strong and have this Shraddha, and everything else is bound to follow.
Would you believe me, we have less faith than the Englishman and woman — a thousand times less faith! These are plain words; but I say these, I cannot help it. Don't you see how Englishmen and women, when they catch our ideals, become mad as it were; and although they are the ruling class, they come to India to preach our own religion notwithstanding the jeers and ridicule of their own countrymen? How many of you could do that? And why cannot you do that? Do you not know it? You know more than they do; you are more wise than is good for you, that is your difficulty! Simply because your blood is only like water, your brain is sloughing, your body is weak! You must change the body. Physical weakness is the cause and nothing else. You have talked of reforms, of ideals, and all these things for the past hundred years; but when it comes to practice, you are not to be found anywhere — till you have disgusted the whole world, and the very name of reform is a thing of ridicule! And what is the cause? Do you not know? You know too well. The only cause is that you are weak, weak, weak; your body is weak, your mind is weak, you have no faith in yourselves! Centuries and centuries, a thousand years of crushing tyranny of castes and kings and foreigners and your own people have taken out all your strength, my brethren. Your backbone is broken, you are like downtrodden worms. Who will give you strength? Let me tell you, strength, strength is what we want. And the first step in getting strength is to uphold the Upanishads, and believe — "I am the Soul", "Me the sword cannot cut; nor weapons pierce; me the fire cannot burn; me the air cannot dry; I am the Omnipotent, I am the Omniscient." So repeat these blessed, saving words. Do not say we are weak; we can do anything and everything. What can we not do? Everything can be done by us; we all have the same glorious soul, let us believe in it. Have faith, as Nachiketâ. At the time of his father's sacrifice, faith came unto Nachiketa; ay, I wish that faith would come to each of you; and every one of you would stand up a giant, a world-mover with a gigantic intellect — an infinite God in every respect. That is what I want you to become. This is the strength that you get from the Upanishads, this is the faith that you get from there.
A pandit asked Swami Vivekananda if there was any harm in giving up sandhyavandanam or prayers performed in the morning, noon and evening, which he had had to do for lack of time. "What!" cried out the swami, almost with ferocity, "Those giants of old, the ancient rishis, who never walked, but strode -the likes of whom, if you are to think [of] for a moment, you would be shriveled into a moth - they, sir, had time and you have none!"… When a Westernized Hindu spoke in a belittling manner of the "meaningless teachings" of the Vedic seers, the swami fell upon him with thunderbolt vehemence, crying out, "Man, a little learning has muddled your brain! How dare you criticize your venerable forebears, how dare you bastardize the blood of the rishis in your veins by speaking in such a fashion! Have you tested the science of the rishis? Have you even so much as read the Vedas? There is the challenge thrown by the rishis! If you dare oppose them, take it up, put their teachings to the test, and they shall not be found wanting! What is making this race contemptible is just such intellectual bigotry and lop-sidedness as you manifest!"(51)
What do we want in India? If foreigners want [the teachings of the Upanishads] we want them twenty times more. Because, in spite of the greatness of the Upanishads, in spite of our boasted ancestry of sages, I must tell you that, compared with many other races, we are weak, very weak. First of all is our physical weakness. That physical weakness is the cause of at least one third of our miseries. We are lazy, we cannot work, we cannot combine, we do not love each other; we are intensely selfish, no three of us can come together without hating each other, without being jealous of each other. That is the state in which we are - hopelessly disorganized mobs, immensely selfish, fighting each other for centuries as to whether a certain mark is to be put on our foreheads this way or that, writing volumes and volumes upon such momentous questions as to whether the look of someone spoils my food or not! This we have been doing for the past few centuries. We cannot expect anything from a race whose whole brain energy has been occupied in such wonderfully beautiful problems and researches! And are we not ashamed of ourselves? Ay, sometimes we are; but though we think these things frivolous, we cannot give them up. We speak of many things parrot-like, but never do them; speaking and not doing has become a habit with us. What is the cause of that? Physical weakness. This sort of weak brain is not able to do anything; we must strengthen it.(52)
What we want, is this Shraddha. Unfortunately, it has nearly vanished from India, and this is why we are in our present state. What makes the difference between man and man is the difference in this Shraddha and nothing else. What make one man great and another weak and low is this Shraddha. My Master used to say, he who thinks himself weak will become weak, and that is true. This Shraddha must enter into you. Whatever of material power you see manifested by the Western races is the outcome of this Shraddha, because they believe in their muscles and if you believe in your spirit, how much more will it work! Believe in that infinite soul, the infinite power, which, with consensus of opinion, your books and sages preach. That Atman which nothing can destroy, in It is infinite power only waiting to be called out. For here is the great difference between all other philosophies and the Indian philosophy. Whether dualistic, qualified monistic, or monistic, they all firmly believe that everything is in the soul itself; it has only to come out and manifest itself. Therefore, this Shraddha is what I want, and what all of us here want, this faith in ourselves, and before you is the great task to get that faith. Give up the awful disease that is creeping into our national blood, that idea of ridiculing everything, that loss of seriousness. Give that up. Be strong and have this Shraddha, and everything else is bound to follow.
Would you believe me, we have less faith than the Englishman and woman — a thousand times less faith! These are plain words; but I say these, I cannot help it. Don't you see how Englishmen and women, when they catch our ideals, become mad as it were; and although they are the ruling class, they come to India to preach our own religion notwithstanding the jeers and ridicule of their own countrymen? How many of you could do that? And why cannot you do that? Do you not know it? You know more than they do; you are more wise than is good for you, that is your difficulty! Simply because your blood is only like water, your brain is sloughing, your body is weak! You must change the body. Physical weakness is the cause and nothing else. You have talked of reforms, of ideals, and all these things for the past hundred years; but when it comes to practice, you are not to be found anywhere — till you have disgusted the whole world, and the very name of reform is a thing of ridicule! And what is the cause? Do you not know? You know too well. The only cause is that you are weak, weak, weak; your body is weak, your mind is weak, you have no faith in yourselves! Centuries and centuries, a thousand years of crushing tyranny of castes and kings and foreigners and your own people have taken out all your strength, my brethren. Your backbone is broken, you are like downtrodden worms. Who will give you strength? Let me tell you, strength, strength is what we want. And the first step in getting strength is to uphold the Upanishads, and believe — "I am the Soul", "Me the sword cannot cut; nor weapons pierce; me the fire cannot burn; me the air cannot dry; I am the Omnipotent, I am the Omniscient." So repeat these blessed, saving words. Do not say we are weak; we can do anything and everything. What can we not do? Everything can be done by us; we all have the same glorious soul, let us believe in it. Have faith, as Nachiketâ. At the time of his father's sacrifice, faith came unto Nachiketa; ay, I wish that faith would come to each of you; and every one of you would stand up a giant, a world-mover with a gigantic intellect — an infinite God in every respect. That is what I want you to become. This is the strength that you get from the Upanishads, this is the faith that you get from there.
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