‘You have not solved the problem of want, only made it keener’.

The Vedanta Philosophy – ‘An Address’.
25 March 1896. Q & A. At Dane Hall,
Harvard University.

In the Questions and Answers session after the lecture – Swamiji’s full answer.

1- Q – What is the Vedantic idea of civilisation?

A – You are philosophers and you do not think that a bag of gold makes the difference between one man and another. What is the value of all these machines and sciences? They have only one result: they spread material knowledge.

You have not solved the problem of want but only made it keener.

Machines do not solve the poverty question; they simply make men struggle the more. The competition gets keener.

What value has nature in itself? Why do you go and build a monument to a man who sends electricity through a wire? Does not nature do that millions of times over? Is not everything already existing in nature? What is the value of your getting it? It is already there. The only value is that it makes this material development.

This universe is simply a gymnasium in which the Soul is taking exercise and after these exercises we become Gods. So the value of everything is to be decided by how far it is a manifestation of God. Civilisation is the manifestation of that divinity in man.

 –  The Pamphlet Cover  –

Publisher: The Vedanta Society of New York, 1904.

Professors present: William James, Charles Everett, Josiah Royce, Charles Lanman. In March 1896 Swamiji was offered the chair of Eastern Philosophy at Harvard. He declined saying he was a monk.