Ideas
131 Years Of Swami Vivekananda's Chicago Speech: A Vedantic Declaration Of Universal Fraternity
Aravindan Neelakandan
Sep 11, 2024, 03:09 PM | Updated 03:36 PM IST
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If an objective history of human species, free from all biases, is to be written, then the speech delivered by a young Hindu, barely 30 years old, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago on 11 September 1893, would stand out as a significant turning point.
In that speech, Swami Vivekananda, soon dubbed the 'cyclonic Hindoo Monk of India' by the US press, made a passionate appeal for a harmonious humanity, free from sectarian violence.
He ended his speech with the following words:
Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
Since then the world has seen two world wars, holocausts and many genocides. Terrorism has become an inseparable reality of modern world.
Yet, there are also stronger drives which make us one, harmonious and united while celebrating all our differences.
Humanity unites in two ways. First, when facing existential threats like asteroids, pandemics, or climate change, we often realise the need to act as one species, interconnected with all life on Earth. This compels us to set aside religious and ideological differences.
Through scientific pursuit, we grasp our insignificance in the vastness of space and time, exposing the fallacy of viewing ourselves as the universe's centre. This existential realisation unites us beyond sectarian barriers.
Positively, the more we realise our true place in the universe, more we realise the oneness of humanity. If our entire solar system is just a tiny speck within the Milky Way galaxy, then our galaxy — home to 200 billion stars and around 5,200 planets — is equally insignificant compared to the countless other galaxies in the universe. And if the idea of parallel universes or multiverses holds true, our universe might be just one among countless others.
In a moving passage in his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan wrote:
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
Now let us compare this passage with the words Swami Vivekananda spoke in 1893. They resonate soulfully across the century that separates them. They also speak to all humanity.
Those words of Swami Vivekananda were uttered this day, 131 years ago.
Not only are we, the human species, not even a speck in the eye of the universe, but even on this planet, we the bipedal apes are but a small, relatively young branch in the infinitely branched phylogenetic tree of life. Evolution has shown us that.
This insignificance is only contrasted by the phenomenon of consciousness and our species' deep-seated need to connect with the universe — a yearning for ultimate unity. Albert Einstein calls this the "cosmic religious feeling". Carl Sagan captures it as "stardust contemplating stars." This cosmic feeling, pulsing within us (and perhaps all species), is what makes us unique.
We are the centre of a polycentric existence only in this sense, and not physically. Perhaps that is the reason why every religious sect claims its sacred city to be the centre of the universe. It is not a physical truth. It is a spiritual reality and hence true for each and every true seeker, irrespective of what that sacred space is: whether it is Banaras or Jerusalem.
For others it is only a belief. And when pitted as empirical claim the sacred cities being centres of the universe or even this earth is a meaningless superstition.
Here science does not negate the claim of a sacred city being the centre of the universe. Rather it burns the sectarian claim and by bringing out the core, it makes the claim a higher reality. The claim is no more sectarian. It is an inner realisation. Vivekananda wanted this purification to happen to religion through the method of science. He said:
Is religion to justify itself by the discoveries of reason, through which every other concrete science justifies itself? Are the same methods of investigation which we apply to sciences and knowledge outside, to be applied to the science of Religion? In my opinion, this must be so, and I am also of opinion that the sooner it is done the better. If a religion is destroyed by such investigations, it was then all the time useless, unworthy superstition; and the sooner it goes the better. I am thoroughly convinced that its destruction would be the best thing that could happen. All that is dross would be taken off, no doubt, but the essential parts of religion will emerge triumphant out of this investigation.
The Vedantic message of Universal Fraternity changed the way India awakened. We fought for freedom against the British but Indian freedom movement was remarkably free from racial hatred against the oppressor.
Compared to the racial narratives that were overflowing both in the left and right politics of the day, the Indian freedom struggle was a Vedantic political movement towards freedom.
It stressed the common unity of humanity. Lokmanya Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and Subramanya Bharati would not have happened without the Vedantic inspiration of Vivekananda.
The event that unfolded at the World Parliament of Religions on 11 September 1893, stands as a pivotal moment in the spiritual evolution of humanity. As Indians, we have a responsibility to carry forward the vision set forth by those words.
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