Vivekananda on Protestantism

 

[Swami Vivekananda on Protestantism, especially liberal Protestantism.]

The dry fanatical forms of religion which attempt to eradicate all that is poetical, all that is beautiful and sublime, all that gives a firm grasp to the infant mind tottering in its Godward way—the forms which attempt to break down the very ridge-poles of the spiritual roof, and in their ignorant and superstitious conceptions of truth try to drive away all that is life-giving, all that furnishes the formative material to the spiritual plant growing in the human soul—such forms of religion too soon find that all that is left to them is but an empty shell, a contentless frame of words and sophistry, with perhaps a little flavour of a kind of social scavengering or the so-called spirit of reform. 

The vast mass of those whose religion is like this, are conscious or unconscious materialists. The end and aim of their lives here and hereafter being enjoyment—which indeed is to them the alpha and the omega of human life, and which is their Ishtâ-purta (sacrifices and philanthropic works), work like street-cleaning and scavengering, intended for the material comfort of man—is, according to them, the “be-all” and “end-all” of human existence; and the sooner the followers of this curious mixture of ignorance and fanaticism come out in their true colours and join, as they well deserve to do, the ranks of atheists and materialists, the better will it be for the world. 

One ounce of the practice of righteousness and of spiritual Self-realisation outweighs tons of frothy talk and nonsensical sentiments. Show us one, but one, gigantic spiritual genius growing out of all this dry dust of ignorance and fanaticism: and if you cannot, close your mouths, open the windows of your hearts to the clear light of truth, and sit like children at the feet of those who know what they are talking about—the sages of India. Let us then listen attentively to what they have to say.