62. Swami Vivekananda: Practical Vedanta
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Swami Medhananda [+]
Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education
Description
Swami Vivekananda (d. 1902 CE) was an Indian monk and philosopher renowned for introducing Hinduism and Vedānta to the West. Although he was a champion of Advaita (Nondual) Vedānta, his interpretation of Advaitic philosophy differed in important respects from Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta. According to Śaṅkara, the sole reality is the impersonal nondual Brahman, so the personal God, the world, and individual souls are nonexistent from the ultimate standpoint. For Śaṅkara, Karma-Yoga (the Yoga of Selfless Work) was thus a helpful preparatory discipline for purifying one’s mind, but once one attains sufficient mental purification, one should stop practicing Karma-Yoga and practice only the higher discipline of Jñāna-Yoga (the Yoga of Knowledge), which consists of reflection and meditation on Upaniṣadic statements about our identity with the nondual Brahman. In November 1896, Vivekananda delivered a series of four lectures in London on the theme of “Practical Vedānta” in which he attempts to demonstrate how the highest truths of Advaita Vedānta can be made practical in our everyday lives. In contrast to Śaṅkara, Vivekananda holds that the ultimate reality is both personal and impersonal and that this world is a real manifestation of God. He derives an ethics of social service on the basis of this expansive panentheistic metaphysics. Since everyone is a manifestation of God, we serve and worship God through the service of humanity.