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From your letter and the articles in Free Hindustan as well as from the very interesting writings of the Hindu Swami Vivekananda and others, it appears that, as is the case in our time with the ills of all nations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced from them and commonly called 'civilization'.
The mission of Swami Vivekananda to the Chicago Congress of Religions is in itself one of the most striking incidents in the history of Hindu revivalism, but it is perhaps less wonderful than the triumph he achieved when he returned to India accompanied by a chosen band of eager disciples from the West.
In considering instances of cosmic consciousness, mukti, which have been recorded as distinctly religious experiences, and the effect of this attainment, the system best known to the Occident, is contained in the philosophy of Vedanta, expounded and interpreted to western understanding by the late Swami Vivekananda.
"Sometimes I wondered about the silver cup; I had almost persuaded myself that Vivekananda's words were only metaphorical. But on Christmas night, as you handed me the square box by the tree, I saw, for the third time in my life, the same dazzling flash of light. In another minute I was gazing on my guru's gift which Vivekananda had foreseen for me forty-three years earlier-a silver cup!"
The gradual training of the people in British law and in the social ethics of the West, and in the true meaning of the righteousness of the Kingdom of God as promulgated by the Christian faith, will, erelong, drive out the old pantheistic idea proclaimed by Vivekananda, when he said that the only sin that man was capable of was the sin of regarding himself as a sinner!
But what is it that such men as Vivekananda and Abhedananda, and all the rest of the Ananda tribe, teach upon their return to India? It is certainly not an orthodox Hinduism, nor is it the pure philosophy of the East. It is rather a strange compound in which Christianity figures as prominently as does Hinduism, and, perhaps, more conspicuously.
"'No, my son, I am not your guru. Vivekananda gazed with his beautiful, piercing eyes deep into my own. 'Your teacher will come later. He will give you a silver cup. After a little pause, he added, smiling, 'He will pour out to you more blessings than you are now able to hold. "I left Chicago in a few days," Mr. Dickinson went on, "and never saw the great Vivekananda again.
There will always remain an infinite number of others for whom nature will go on working." But did Vivekananda employ the phrase "nature has no more attraction for him," to describe the sensation of unappreciativeness of the wonders of the natural world? We think not.
Seek both and when you find them worship and serve them with all your heart and soul. 'My worship for my master is the worship of a dog. I do not seek to understand his nature. It ever startles with its newness and profound depth'. So spoke Vivekananda of Ram Krishna. Need I tell you of the tremendous and world-conquering power that awoke in Vivekananda through mere Guru worship?
Justice Renade, in his social reform movement of the last fifty years, has carried the spirit of philanthropy into practice, more fully than did Vivekananda or Mrs. Besant, and without any of their fantastic self-exaltation. Renade recognized the elements of truth in both the Hindu and Moslem systems, and he saw in Christianity the influence destined to unite them.
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