14 minute read
Pariprasna
Q & A with Srimat Swami Tapasyananda (1904 to 1991), Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Order.
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Approach the wise sages, offer reverential salutations, repeatedly ask proper questions, serve them and thus know the Truth. — Bhagavad Gita
Question: Where should reasoning stop and give place to faith?
Maharaj: Reason and faith work in different fields, although up to a certain point they can go together. Reason, in the sense of logical inference, works on the basis of data provided by the senses. It works as deduction and induction. Deduction is based on a general proposition which is taken for granted. This general proposition in its turn is based upon induction, upon observation of sense data and verification through experiment. Thus sense data are the material which all logical processes deal with ultimately. The function of the logical process is to correlate these data, arrive at valid generalizations, draw implications in the light of the laws of thought, and thus help the intellectual understanding of perceived facts.
It will be seen that reason or logic in itself cannot give us any data. It can only process data obtained through perception. So logical reasoning can effectively function only where sense data are available, ie., within the limitation of our powers of observation with senses alone or senses aided by instruments. With regard to anything beyond, it can only work as an unreliable pointer to many possibilities, creating a sense of learned ignorance and uncertainty. Thus it cannot give us any conviction about the existence or nature of God, although it can point towards several possibilities in this respect.
In the field of the Spirit, which is non-spatial and non-temporal, only inspiration or supersensuous understanding (Jnana) can give us any data carrying conviction. To think that logic
and reason can do so is to expect the impossible. But before Jnana is generated in us, that is, in our present state of understanding confined to spatial and temporal things, how are we to proceed with a working conviction on such a fundamental truth as existence of God? It is here that the faculty of our understanding known as faith has to come into operation.
Faith is the capacity of the mind to accept on trust the ultimate and otherwise ununderstandable facts of life with a power very near that of conviction. Trust is of course always on the basis of a reliable authority—a scripture or a teacher. It is an abuse of this faculty to invoke it in all petty affairs of life or to support the mystery-mongering tendencies of people. Its legitimate application is with regard to the ultimate questions of life where sense powers and logic are quite helpless in giving either data or certainty by themselves. Does God exist? What is His nature? Is there a hereafter? Has life got any ultimate meaning? How are we to live so as to realize the ultimate end of life? Questions such as these can be decided only on the basis of scriptures, which are divine revelations, or on the authority of great illumined world
teachers who are acclaimed as messengers of Light. To live in perpetual doubt on such fundamental and vital questions on the ground that our sense faculties and reason in themselves cannot help us, is folly. Doubt in this sense is as much a disease as credulity, which may be described as proneness to accept all kinds of claims and views on ordinary matters of life where the exercise of intelligence and critical spirit is needed in order to avoid deception.
In the choice of scriptures and teachers also there are certain norms set forth by these agencies themselves. Scriptures are revealed literature and have proved their genuineness by their survival through the ages and their conveying light and inspiration to countless generations o f men. And great world-teachers are men of illumination and power who have no selfish ends of their own to seek and who live absolutely for the welfare of the world at large.
Even here man has freedom of choice. People are born in different religious traditions. In these days when cultures and nations are brought into very intimate contact, man has got the freedom to draw inspiration from all these traditions. When he feels that the teachings of a particular religion on ultimate questions are more credible than those of another, he has got every right to accept them. Credibility is a requirement even where faith has to be exercised, especially if the men concerned are of considerable mental and intellectual development.
The question of ‘credibility’ brings us again to a consideration of the legitimate place of reason in our scheme of life even while according a proper place for faith. Just as reason can correlate the facts experienced by the senses and build them into an understandable system, so also it can help in relating the various facts of supersensuous experience among themselves and these in turn with our knowledge of the world of senses. It has been well said that what is accepted on faith need not necessarily contradict reason. The coherence of all data, whether sensuous or supersensuous, is a demand that human understanding makes for an integrated world-view.
The great Vedantic thinkers of India and the great theologians of the West have attempted this work of integration through reason. But this has its limitations. If we could understand the Spirit fully by logical thinking alone, Spirit would have become matter. Unless the limitations of logic in this field are recognized from the start, we are liable to commit the mistake of rejecting as unacceptable or non-existent what is beyond its capacity. We have therefore got to make a distinction between what contradicts reason and what transcends reason and be prepared to abandon the pretensions of logic when the point of transcendence has come. In other words man must be prepared to admit that his capacity for knowledge is very limited and his logic will break at some stage in its efforts to capture the Infinite in its webs. That point is the point of transcendence and what is beyond we have to accept by exercise of the faculty of faith alone ie., on the authority of the scripture and the teacher.
For example let us take the question of the existence of God. Attempts can be made on purely rational grounds to establish the plausibility of a First Cause. But when we try to understand the nature of It on pure logical reasoning, we will find our logic breaking. God the First Cause, by common acceptance, is
WILLIAM PAGE
It is not generally known, but there are at least two versions of Swami Vivekananda’s famous speech titled ‘Response to Welcome.’ That was the first speech he gave at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, on 11 September 1893. There are a short version and a long version.
The short version is the standard, canonical version. It is found in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (hereafter, CW), Volume 1, pp. 3-4, and it is 472 words long.
The long version, which is less known, is also in the CW, but in Volume 9, pp. 429-430. It is 554 words long—82 words longer than the short version. Published in a section titled ‘American Newspaper Reports,’ it is described as an ‘Editorial synthesis of four Chicago newspaper reports from: Herald, Inter Ocean, Tribune, and Record, ca. September 11, 1893.’ As Volume 9 notes (p. 429), it was compiled by the late Marie Louise Burke (Sister Gargi), and first appeared in her monumental work, Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, Volume 1, pp.83-84.
The two versions combined
The interesting thing about the long version is the ways in which it differs from the short one. Below is a conflation of the two. The text in black print is common to both. The text in red italics appears only in the long version. Where there is a difference in wording, I give both, separated by a slash bar (/). The wording in the short version comes first, then the slashbar, then the wording in the long version, in red italics:
Sisters and brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. / to the grand words of welcome given to us by you. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world. / the most ancient order of monks the world has ever seen, of which Gautama was only a member. I thank you in the name of the mother / Mother of religions, of which Buddhism and Jainism are but branches; and I thank you, finally, in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu / Hindoo people of all classes / castes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on the /this platform, who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, [the long version omits ‘referring to the delegates from the Orient’] have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. / will bear to the different lands the idea of toleration which they may see here. My thanks to them for this idea.
William Page has been associated with the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Massachusetts since 1960 and is a member of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Association of Thailand. wpage108@gmail.com
I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, / tolerance, but we accept all religions as / to be true. I am proud to tell you that I belong to a religion in whose sacred language, the Sanskrit, the word exclusion is untranslatable. (Applause.) I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who / a remnant of which came to Southern / southern India and took refuge with us in the very year / years in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.
I will quote to you, brethren, / brothers, a few lines from a hymn which every Hindoo child repeats every day. I feel that the very spirit of this hymn, which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: / by millions and millions of men in India, has at last come to be realized. ‘As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, / O Lord, so the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.’
The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, / an indication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita [the long version italicises ‘Gita’]: ‘Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men [the long version omits ‘men’] are struggling through paths which in the end always lead to Me.’ Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed / have possessed long this beautiful earth. They have / It has filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, / with human gore, destroyed civilisation / civilization and sent whole nations to / into despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. [The long version omits this last sentence.] But their time is come; / But its time has come; and I fervently hope / believe that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention / in honor of the representatives of the different religions of the earth, in this parliament assembled, may be the deathknell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions / is the death-knell to all fanaticism (applause), that it is the death-knell to all persecution with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons / brethren wending their way to the same goal. / to the same goal, but through different ways.
Analysis
If Sister Gargi synthesised the long version from four Chicago newspaper reports, where does the short version come from? Evidently it is a slightly edited variation of the version published in John Henry Barrows’ magisterial history of the parliament, The World’s Parliament of Religions, Volume 1, pp. 101-102, published in Chicago in 1893, the same year the parliament was held. Sister Gargi suggested this in New Discoveries, Volume 1, p. 82.
It seems likely that the long version was a more accurate rendering of Swamiji’s speech than the short one. It sounds closer to spoken English. In fact, the short version looks very much like an edited version of the long one. It is smoother; some of the rough edges have been sandpapered away. Nonessential phrases and clauses have been deleted. Claims that might strike a discordant note in the harmony of religions by offending the Buddhists and the Jains (‘of which Gautama was only a member,’ ‘of which Jainism and Buddhism are but branches’) have been dropped. The sentence containing the claim ‘a religion in whose sacred language, the Sanskrit, the word exclusion is untranslatable’ has been deleted. Extraneous words like finally and always have been omitted. Lengthy phrases have been condensed: ‘millions and millions of men in India’ has been downsized to ‘millions of human beings’; ‘the representatives of the different religions of the earth, in this parliament assembled’ has been whittled away to ‘this convention.’ Stylistically, the short version is superior. The English usage provides further evidence that the long version is truer to the original. First, we have the phrase ‘given to us by you.’ Indian English is fond of the passive voice. Swamiji was an Indian, so he would have been less likely to say ‘which you have given us.’ That construction is more idiomatic in American English, and is likely to have been substituted by an American editor.
Second, Swamiji was more likely to have used the word castes, which is specific to Indian culture, than the more general word classes. Third, the long version, recorded by American reporters, uses American spelling throughout (honor, civilization, realized), whereas the short version, probably edited in India, uses British spelling (honour, civilisation).
There is a question of whether Swamiji referred to human blood (short version) or human gore (long). I suspect the latter, because it’s more colourful. Swamiji was never shy about using colourful language. Prim and proper Victorian minds would naturally shy away from the goriness of gore and want to substitute the more sanitised word blood.
The short version ends with a bang: the hope that the bell that had tolled that morning would sound ‘the death-knell…of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.’ The long version ends (with apologies to T.S. Eliot), not with a bang, but a whimper: it trails off with the debilitating qualifier, ‘but through different ways.’ But it compensates for this shortcoming by replacing the vague and general word persons with the warmer and more inclusive word brethren.
Conclusion
So far as we know, Swamiji had to compose the speech in his head, while sitting on the stage waiting to be called on. We don’t know how much advance notice he had. We do know that he had declined an invitation to speak at the morning session, a few hours earlier. The short version is a masterpiece of rhetoric, and might easily be taught as a model for students to emulate in both speaking and writing. The longer version is also very good. As it was delivered with very little time for preparation, given the conditions under which Swamiji had to compose it, in terms of content, organisation, and eloquence its high quality is almost miraculous.
Both versions serve three functions: they respond gratefully to the warm welcome Swamiji has received; they summarise concisely and eloquently the centuries-long Hindu tradition of accepting other faiths and welcoming their believers; and they end with an appeal for an end to intolerance. Whichever version comes closer to the original, the fact that Swamiji composed it in his head, without any books to refer to and without even being able to write it down, shows once again the matchless quality of that marvelous brain.
