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Prabuddha Bharata
Conclusion I have made a modest attempt to present parallel lines of thought in Vedanta and Western philosophy. The ideas I have mentioned are not even the tip of the iceberg. For instance, Swamiji’s conception of the leader as someone who serves his followers is radically opposed to the Nietzschian idea of the superman. There are many such examples. Further, in many instances Indian concepts are older and far more complete and comprehensive than the corresponding Western
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f we look at a picture through a pin-hole in a cardboard, we get an utterly mistaken notion; yet what we see is really the picture. As we enlarge the hole, we get a clearer and clearer idea. Out of the reality we manufacture the different views in conformity with our mistaken perceptions of name and form. When we throw away the cardboard, we see the same picture, but we see it as it is. We put in all the attributes, all the errors; the picture itself is unaltered thereby. That is because Atman is the reality of all; all we see is Atman, but not as we see it, as name and form; they are all in our veil, in Maya. They are like spots in the object-glass of a telescope, yet it is the light of the sun that shows us the spots; we could not even see the illusion save for the background of reality which is Brahman. Swami Vivekananda is just the speck on the object-glass; I am Atman, real, unchangeable, and that reality alone enables me to see Swami Vivekananda. Atman is the essence of every hallucination; but the sun is never identified with the spots on the glass, it only shows them to us. Our actions, as they are evil or good, increase or decrease the ‘spots’; but they never affect the God within us. Perfectly cleanse the mind of spots and instantly we see, ‘I and my father are one’. —The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 7.75
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ideas. Speaking of Sankhya philosophy Swamiji says: ‘Wherever there is any philosophy or rational thought, it owes something or other to Kapila. Pythagoras learnt it in India, and taught it in Greece. Later on Plato got an inkling of it; and still later the Gnostics carried the thought to Alexandria, and from there it came to Europe. So wherever there is any attempt at psychology or philosophy, the great father of it is this man, Kapila’ (2.455). I have tried to substantiate my opening argument that the syllabus in Indian schools and colleges needs to be India-centric. We need a stronger foundation of India’s own ideas and a greater understanding and appreciation of them. I have been severely limited by my own area of study. Swami Vivekananda’s conceptualization of key concepts in the history of ideas has universal relevance and can be used as a starting point for new research paradigms. P References 1 1. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. 12. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, ed. David Berman, trans. Jill Berman (London: Everyman, 2009), 141. 13. Ecclesiastics, 1:14, 18. 14. The World as Will and Idea, 3. 15. Sir William Jones, ‘On the Philosophy of the Asiatics’, in Asiatic Researches, 4.164, quoted in The World as Will and Idea, 4. 16. The World as Will and Idea, 5. 17. Complete Works, 2.445–6. 18. Eastern Religions and Western Thought, 11. 19. See Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Philosophy (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 133. 20. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London: Routledge Classics, 2004), 517. 21. See Eastern Religions and Western Thought, 11. 22. See Complete Works, 9.530. 23. Swami Ranganathananda, Eternal Values for a Changing Society (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971), 1.23–4. 24. Complete Works, 2.462. PB May 2012