| Awaken Bharata |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| THE HINDU RENAISSANCE AT A TURNING POINT | |
| The
further idea was created of a Christian Vedanta and an
Islamic Vedanta, as if Vedanta was
not Hindu, or as if Vedanta was universal but Hinduism
or Sanatana Dharma was sectarian.
Ramakrishna centers came more to resemble churches. The
spiritual nectar that was so great in the early days of the order
began to disappear.
This process started perhaps as early as 1903 when the movement dissociated itself from Sister Nivedita, the fiery Irish woman disciple of Vivekananda, and perhaps his true spiritual heir, who became a powerful revolutionary voice for the independence of India. For fear of upsetting their British rulers, the movement banned such revolutionary sentiments and actions. This set in motion a process of political accommodation that weakened the traditional roots of the movement and undermined its Hindu identity.Vivekananda himself did not live long enough to know that turning Ramakrishna into the avatar would compromise the traditional basis of the movement and make Vedanta a footnote to a new religion. The Ramakrishna movement later allied itself with a modern Indian secularism, accepting the idea that we should honor all religions as equally good and true, regardless of their history, what they actually teach, or what their majority members really believe. Such movements would brand Hindu revivalism, which Vivekananda originally pioneered, as Hindu fundamentalism but try to excuse Islamic or Christian fundamentalism. |
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