Swami Vivekananda’s lectures given at the Chicago World Parliament of Religions from September 11, 1893, to September 27, 1893, made him known to the world. Out of many positive comments, I selected the following three which give us a glimpse of how his lectures were received by eminent people and the leading newspapers.  

            Mr. Merwin-Marie Snell, President of the Scientific Section of the Chicago Parliament of Religions said, “..by far the most important and typical representative of Hinduism was Swami Vivekananda, who in fact was beyond question the most popular and influential man in the Parliament.”

            The New York Herald wrote, “He (Swami Vivekananda) is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions.”

            Boston Evening Transcript wrote, “Vivekananda’s address before the Parliament was broad as the heaven above us, embracing the best in all religions, as the ultimate universal religion – charity to all mankind and good works for the love of God, not for fear of punishment or hope of reward. He is a great favorite of the parliament…If he merely crosses the platform he is applauded…”

            Swami Vivekananda gave six lectures at the Chicago Parliament of Religions. It seems that five of these lectures were extempore and the sixth one titled “Paper on Hinduism” was a well-prepared one-hour lecture delivered on September 19, 1893. We can guess that all the speakers were allowed to present a one-hour paper on their religion.

            Anyone who wants to know about Hinduism must read this lecture. Swami Vivekananda explained the basic principles of Hinduism in a very rational and eloquent way. The development of the thoughts is wonderful. When we read this lecture, we can feel his passion, practice, and the divine touch of his own realization of these eternal principles. He also showed that Hinduism is not a religion of an underdeveloped country that is filled with primitive ideas of worship and snake charmers which many western people have conceived. Swami Vivekananda, having the knowledge of science, explained that the principles of Hinduism are scientific and science, with its advancement, is establishing the same truths that the founders of Hinduism had established earlier. Swami Vivekananda also cleared up the wrong conceptions about Hinduism prevailing in the minds of non-Indian people, especially in western minds.

            In this article, I wanted to share the main points that appealed to me while studying this lecture. I hope these points inspire the readers to read Swami Vivekananda’s lecture, “Paper on Hinduism” to get its full impact and along with it enjoy his eloquence, language, analogies, logical explanations, and many more things.

(1) Many sects and religions arose from Hinduism to challenge its fundamental principles, but Hinduism absorbed them all. Hinduism in itself has a place for the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy and low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of Jains, and many more contradictory-looking sects.

(2) Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. The Vedas is a collection of the spiritual laws discovered or perceived by the Rishis. Just as the laws, discovered by the scientists that govern the universe, always exist whether they were found or not, similarly spiritual laws always exist which govern the spiritual world. The spiritual laws deal with the moral and spiritual relations between individuals, the purpose of life, and the relation between the creator of the universe and its creation. In the Vedas, we find that many Rishis were women.

(3) The Vedas teach that creation is without beginning or end. The cycle of creation, preservation, and dissolution goes on. The power of Brahman runs these cycles. All the material of one cycle gets recycled in the next one.

Rig Veda (10.190) says, “The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and moons of the previous cycles.”

This agrees with the science.

(4) Each individual is Atman (spirit) and not a combination of material substances.  Creation means combination and combination has a certain future dissolution. Atman is not created and therefore it does not die. The body dies, but not the Atman.

(5) The idea of a creator God is not logical and it does not agree with science. The creator God cannot explain why people are born in different situations; some are born in rich families where all their needs are fulfilled while some are born in poor families where they had to struggle even for their survival, and some are born with excellent health while some are born with physical and/or mental deficiencies. If there is a creator God, then He/she would be considered partial and unjust.

(6) Since Atman does not die, the atman takes many lives. People are born in different situations because of their own Karma (actions) in their previous births. This is logical. No one else has to be blamed for one’s own situation. We are the builder of our destiny.

(7) Swami Vivekananda gave a convincing example to explain the impressions of past lives. He said that he is talking in English which is not his mother tongue.  During the talk, not a single word of his mother tongue Bengali appears in his conscious mind. However, if he wishes to speak Bengali, then all the Bengali words will come out from the deeper level of his mind.  Rishis say that it is possible to go into the deeper level of the consciousness of the mind where one can find all the stored impressions of past lives.  

(8) Atman is immortal. No weapon can destroy it, no fire can burn it, no water can soak it and no wind can wither it.  

Swami Vivekananda said, “Every soul (Atman) is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose center is located in the body, and that death means the change of this center from the body to body.”

(9) In its very essence, Atman is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But, somehow or other it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter. (Note: Here Swamiji did not bring the concept of Maya.)

Hindus are bold and say that they don’t know how the perfect Atman came to think of itself as imperfect.  (Note: Actually, it is senseless for a deluded person to ask ‘how did I get deluded?’ under the delusion.)

(10) Is a human being a helpless and weak entity being tossed around due to the chain of his/her Karmas and their effects?

A Vedic sage said, “Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! Even ye that resides in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing that Ancient One alone you shall be saved from death over again.”  

Swami Vivekananda said, “’ Children of immortal bliss’ – what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name – heirs of immortal bliss – yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners.”

Thus, each person is potentially divine. The real identity of each individual is Atman and not the material existence bounded by body and mind.

(11) The Vedas proclaim that a human being is not a dreadful combination of unforgiving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One (Atman or Brahman) ‘by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the cloud rain, and death stalks upon the earth.’  

(12) What is the nature of the Ancient One (Brahman)?

Brahman is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful.

The Vedas say, “Thou art the father, Thou art the mother, Thou art our beloved friend. Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life.”  

(13)  How to worship Brahman?

The answer is ‘Through love’.

‘Brahman is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life.’

(14) Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita taught that a person ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in the water but is never moistened by water; so a person ought to live in the world – his/her heart to God and hands to work. One must live in the world with a detached spirit.

(15) It is good to love God for the hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love God for love’s sake.

There is a prayer: “O Lord! I do not want wealth, children, or learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth, but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward – love unselfishly for love’s sake.”  

Queen Draupadi asked her husband, King Yudhishthira, “Why should you suffer so much misery when you are the most virtuous of mankind?”

King Yudhishthira said, “Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are; I love them. They do not give me anything, but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful, therefore I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved; my nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I don’t pray for anything; I don’t ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love’s sake. I cannot tread in love.”  

(16) The Vedas teach that the soul (Atman) is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti – freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery.

This bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and this mercy comes on pure. So, purity is the condition of His mercy.

How does that mercy act?

God reveals Himself to the pure heart; the pure and stainless see God, yea, even in this life; then and then only all the crookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all doubts cease.

 Then, the human being is no more a freak of a terrible law of causation.

This is the very center, the very vital conception of Hinduism. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there is Atman in him/her which is not the matter, then the Hindu wants to realize it directly. The Hindu knows that this realization can alone destroy all doubts.

So, the best proof a Hindu sage gives about God or Atman is, “I have seen the God; I have realized the Atman.” That is the only condition of perfection. A perfect soul is free from all the bondages.

(17) The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing God (Atman) – not in believing, but in being and becoming.

The whole object of the Hindu system is the constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach God, and see God, and this reaching God, seeing God, and becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus.

(18) What becomes of a person who attains perfection?

A perfect soul lives a life of bliss infinite. He/she enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in which a person ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys the bliss with God.

This is the common religion of all the sects of Hinduism.

Perfection is absolute, and the absolute is only one, it cannot be two or three. The absolute has no qualities and it cannot be an individual. Thus, when a person becomes perfect and absolute, he/she becomes one with Brahman. He/she realizes one’s own nature and existence, that is, the existence absolute, knowledge absolute, and bliss absolute (Sat-Chit-Ananda).  

People often think that when one loses the so-called ‘individuality’ made out of body and mind and becomes one with Brahman, then he/she becomes a stock or a stone. 

Swami Vivekananda says, “I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to enjoy the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness increasing with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the aim, the ultimate of happiness being reached when it would become a universal consciousness.

“Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go.

“Then alone can death cease when I am one with life (Sat),

 Then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself (Ananda),

 Then alone all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself (Chit).

“This is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter; and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, Soul (Atman).”

(19) Swami Vivekananda said, “Science is nothing but finding unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop further progress, because it would reach the goal.

“The chemistry could not progress further when it would discover ‘one element’ out of which all others could be made.

“Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfill its services in discovering ‘one energy’ of which all the others are but manifestations.

“The science of religion become perfect when it would discover

the One, who is the one life in a universe of death,

the One, who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world,

the One, who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations.

“Thus, it is through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no further. This is the goal of all science.

“All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation and not creation is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he/she has been cherishing in his/her bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language and with further light from the latest conclusions of science.” 

(20) Swami Vivekananda said that so far he had discussed the aspirations of the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism and now he wants to talk about the worship of the Hindu people.

Swami Vivekananda said, “At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India.”

In every Hindu temple, the worshippers apply all the attributes of God, including omnipresence, to the images. It is not polytheism.

Swami Vivekananda said, “The tree is known by its fruits. When I have seen amongst them that are called idolaters, people, the like of whom, in morality and spirituality, and love, I have never seen anywhere, I stop and ask myself, ‘Can sin beget holiness?’

There are images in all religions. We can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he/she worships. It helps to keep his/her mind fixed on the Being to whom he/she is praying. The Hindu knows that the image is not God and is not omnipresent.

How can we think about the concept of omnipresence? Most people think of omnipresence as the extended sky or of space and nothing more. We need an image to think of the word ‘omnipresent’.

The Hindus have associated the ideas of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms.

The whole religion of the Hindu is centered on realization.  A person is to become divine, by realizing the divine. Idols or temples or books are only the supports, that help in the beginning stages of spirituality, but he/she must progress towards realizing the divine. He/she must not stop anywhere.

A Hindu scripture says, “External worship, material worship is the lowest stage; struggling to rise high, mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realized.”  

A Hindu who kneels down before an idol tells you, “Him the sun cannot express, nor the moon, nor the stars, the lightning cannot express Him, nor what we speak of as fire; through Him, they shine.”   

A Hindu never condemns anyone who is worshiping an image. He/she recognizes the necessity of worshiping an image in the initial stage of spiritual life.

To Hindus, a person is not traveling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth.

(21) A Hindu recognizes that ‘Unity in variety is the plan of nature’.  

The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realized, thought of, or stated through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols – so many pegs to hang spiritual ideas on. This help is not necessary for all.  Taking help with the images is not compulsory in Hinduism.

To the Hindu, the whole world of religions is only a traveling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material being, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them.

A Hindu thinks that the contradictions are only apparent. They come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures.  It is the same light coming through glasses of different colors. These variations are necessary for purposes of adaption. In the heart of everything the same truth reigns.

Lord Krishna has said in the Bhagavad Gita:

“I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls.” 

“Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there.”

Hindus never believe that they are the only spiritual people. They know the fact that in God’s kingdom spiritual-minded people are in every religion and in every country.

Sage Vyasa says in the Vedanta Sutras, “We find perfect men and women even beyond the pale of our caste and creed.”   

(22) At the end Swami Vivekananda expresses his dream of a universal religion that includes all religions and all people and still has space for development. In that religion, there will be no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity. Such a religion will recognize the divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered on aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature.

Swami Vivekananda said that America, through the Chicago Parliament of Religions, was destined to proclaim to the world that the Lord is in every religion.