I believe that I actually said nothing about race
What do you call this?:
atanu said:
Is this young atheist half Indian student a competent judge of works of Dayanand Saraswati or Rammohan Roy, both renown Vedic scholars?
You certainly mentioned it. Why would you deny it?
Your historical cum sociological piece begins with identification of two different races and then goes on to attribute a motive (which, IMO, is your bias or your perception) on the Hindu Gurus -- of pandering to western taste, as if.
Why does the fact that my article deals with race mean that I shouldn't take umbrage with subtly negative comments about my race?
More importantly, where in my article do I accuse the Gurus of pandering to western taste? Quote me. My argument was that by being surrounded by British education, institutions and culture, they naturally imbibed British norms and ideas. This is not pandering, it is a normal process of cultural diffusion. Why are you attributing arguments to me which I did not make to make me sound critical?
Second. Kindly tell me how these reformers, except Shri Ram Mohan Roy, did really alter the form and content of Hinduism? What wrong did Vivekananda teach?
Well first off, does that mean that you are conceding that Roy really did alter the form and content of Hinduism? Because if so, the rest of my argument seems inescapable, if you know how widely influential the Brahmo Samaj was in the Bengal Renaissance, including on Vivekananda who was a passionate and highly active member during his 20s. Secondly, why do you assume that Vivekananda being influenced by English thought, constitutes a "wrong"? Hinduism is constantly engaging in syncretism. I don't consider it wrong, its just a new and different influence. This I think is the root of the issue, because it keeps coming up. Many Hindus see Western influence on Hinduism as ipso facto "wrong" so they deny it with a passion.
I'll gladly answer your substantive question though: Vivekananda's alterations or innovations within Hinduism, or the innovations made by the Brahmos which were also adopted by Vivekananda include:
-He conceptualized Hinduism as an all-inclusive meta-religion. I.e. all religions could have equal truth value, and all descriptions of God were describing the same exact entity-- namely the atman/brahman. Precolonial Vedanta thought that other religions were somewhat true, but not as true as Vedanta. This is also a Brahmo teaching.
- He was a quasi-missionary, which is very rare in the Hindu tradition, except of course amongst Brahmos.
-His interpretation of Yoga is unique in that it takes away Pantajali's Samkhya metaphysics in which the gunas are the main substratum of prakriti. In Vivekananda's system it is akasha and prana which are the main substratum of prakriti. In Samkhya metaphysics, akasha is one of the final, not even close to the initial combination forms of gunas, and prana isn't considered a combination form of gunas at all.
-His version of the Ashram is very different from the traditional version, insofar as it accepts laymen, publishes literature, holds regular services and community events, etc. It behaves like a blend of an ashram, a temple, and a church, probably because it took inspiration from the Brahmo Sabhas.
- He treated samadhi as a valid knowledge means of knowledge for Brahmajnana rather than just sruti, as Shankara held. This is also a Brahmo teaching. (Some Vivekananda followers claim that Shankara thought that samadhi was a valid means of knowledge for brahmajnana, but shankara never says this. In his system, once someone has already attained valid knowledge from sruti, one engages in meditation upon what one knows and thereby attains spiritual release. This is an important distinction)
- He reformulated the concept of Dharma away from varnashramadharma in favor of a more universalist approach. Also a Brahmo concept, which they started doing to counter Christian claims of being the universal, non-varna related Dharma. He also emphasized the "moral value" component of Dharma and deemphasized the "law" component.
This was mostly a historical or sociological article, not a theological one.
Yes. This is exactly my point too. History and Sociology are hardly the tools to judge persons such as Shri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, or Ramana, who are from all records and accounts, Self Realised. Judging them from an academic POV is, IMO, not tenable.
This is why I think that historical denial is to neo-Hinduism what creationism is to Christianity. It is a faith based, anti-rational refusal to confront information about the world, because it threatens the religious belief system. It is also a big part of the reason why people criticize Hindus for having no sense of history. This is a shame, because some forms of traditional Hinduism do have a sense of history, and most forms of traditional Hinduism have highly developed schools of logic and subject everything in sight to rational inquiry. I know I'm coming across as harsh right now, but I'm passionate about this because I think that it really hurts our tradition to refuse to engage with the facts brought up by scholars.
Self realized or not, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, etc were human beings who existed in history. Being deemed "Self Realised" doesn't exempt someone from historical scrutiny. They were human, they were influenced by their historical and material conditions. This is like if our Abrahamist friends said "Well, Jesus was the Son of God so your historical analysis that the biblical account of his death is incorrect is not tenable. You can't study that academically because he is the Son of God" or "We can't look at the actions of Muhammed historically because he was the prophet of God. So don't tell me that Muhammed was influenced by Arabian paganism, because he was a prophet so that means your academic view is untenable." These rationales are silly when applied to other religions. We shouldn't accept them for Vivekananda just because we are Hindu.
