/lit/ - Literature

Read khushwant singh now

>I have heard stirring speeches on the greatness of Swami Vivekananda and how he made an impact by his rousing oration at the first Congress of Religions in Chicago in September 1893. His admirers would have you believe that his speech was a stunning performance that shook the Western world. This is a myth of our own making. I looked up contemporary records of American papers of the time, which do not bear this out. He undoubtedly was a handsome, powerfully built man and a good orator but by no means as great a thinker as his admirers make him out to be. However, if India’s millions want to believe that Vivekananda shook the world, who am I to question their conviction?
>Rereading his thoughts confirmed my fears. There are lines that mean nothing. For instance: ‘If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent.’ How wrong his prophecy about the collapse of the materially minded West and the renaissance of the spiritually minded East was can be gauged from what he wrote over a hundred years ago:
Europe, the centre of the manifestation of material energy, will crumble into dust within 50 years if she is not mindful to change her position, to shift her ground and make spirituality the basis of her life. And what will save Europe is the religion of the Upanishads.
Europe has not crumbled; the land of the Upanishads has.

Based khushwant?Shankacharya and gang BTFO???

>I have heard stirring speeches on the greatness of Swami Vivekananda and how he made an impact by his rousing oration at the first Congress of Religions in Chicago in September 1893. His admirers would have you believe that his speech was a stunning performance that shook the Western world. This is a myth of our own making. I looked up contemporary records of American papers of the time, which do not bear this out. He undoubtedly was a handsome, powerfully built man and a good orator but by no means as great a thinker as his admirers make him out to be. However, if India’s millions want to believe that Vivekananda shook the world, who am I to question their conviction?
Rereading his thoughts confirmed my fears. There are lines that mean nothing. For instance: ‘If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent.’ How wrong his prophecy about the collapse of the materially minded West and the renaissance of the spiritually minded East was can be gauged from what he wrote over a hundred years ago:
Europe, the centre of the manifestation of material energy, will crumble into dust within 50 years if she is not mindful to change her position, to shift her ground and make spirituality the basis of her life. And what will save Europe is the religion of the Upanishads.
Europe has not crumbled; the land of the Upanishads has.

Based khushwant? Shankacharya and gang BTFO???