The Harvard Lecture
‘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, some deep questions get Swamiji’s wonderful answers – “… you must reason what you are.”
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 an expression of God. Civilisation is the expression of that divinity in man.
2- Q – Can you describe the Soul?
A – We would describe the Soul in these words: “This Soul; the sword cannot cut, nor the spear pierce, nor the fire burn, nor water dissolve. Indestructible, Omnipresent is the Soul. Therefore weep not for It.”
3- Q – This state of Oneness that you speak of, is It an ideal or something actually attained?
A – We say It is actual. We say we Realise that state. If It were only in talk, It would be nothing.
Vedanta teaches three things: This Self is first to be heard, then to be reasoned on, then to be meditated on. When a person first hears It, they must reason on It, so that they do not believe It ignorantly but Knowingly. Then, after reasoning what they are, they must meditate on It and then Realise It. And that is spirituality. Belief is no part of spirituality. We say realising It is a Super-Conscious state.
4- Q – If you ever reach that state, can you talk about It?
No, but we Know It by Its fruits. An idiot, when they go to sleep, they come out of sleep still an idiot. But another person, when they go into meditation, they come out a philosopher, a sage, a great person.
– The Pamphlet Cover –
The Graduate Philosophical Society, Harvard University.
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.
