Swami Nikhilananda (1895–1973)

It occurs to me that India has its treasures in cheap clay jars.... (poor people, rich minds)

I was interested in a sorta traditional Indian take on Hinduism—some people always need to give the blues a British face, [I know; I know; “Even better than the real thing” :P], so to speak [I realize that many of these teachers are actually Jewish, not white, but even in the new age movement being too Jewish is often out; somehow being a white Hindu can be whiter than being a Jew]—but I was surprised to learn how modern the late Victorians could be, even in India. I guess I thought they were farther from London, as even the villages of Cornwall and Yorkshire are far from London. I guess it depends.

.... It’s also interesting, on the other hand, how even for a monk there was this engagement with mythology and not only philosophy, this push and pull between personal and impersonal, that sometimes the outsider doesn’t see.

.... Also instructive are the references to the poverty and ignorance of the Indian masses. (Here as elsewhere the Perfect Amalgam of social work and spirituality is maddeningly difficult.) Sometimes people tend to push against what they know. I believe that both of my parents were intimately bound up with the Catholic Church in their past life; my father as a priest and my mother as a nun, but they both diverged from that path, in different ways, in this life after having received a Catholic childhood. It’s just another example of getting fed up with what you know, the way I did as a youth with both of the very different things they offered me. We would still be people if we were Indians; poverty and ignorance (“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.”) would take different forms if we were in India, but one way or another, that’s just how it goes. We all lack and we all don’t know, and with most people it’s very bad most of the time—anywhere.

Maybe the Swami himself has this problem, as he advocates eating meat to excess—apparently he wanted five priests to be able to finish off a whole cow: over a hundred pounds of meat each! There’s adaptation, and then there’s excess, right. I think vegetarianism, my practice, is a fine thing, and concern for food can do good things to a religion, which can otherwise become hyper-otherworldly. Anyway I like Vivekananda but I disagree with Tagore’s overly popular-minded comment that you can more or less study him and then call it a day.

.... “My God (is) the wicked, (and) the afflicted” is great, though. I’m sure he said plenty of great things.

.... Anyway Indians tend towards great universalism and I’m not trying to make it sound like their white devotees are wrong. It’s just that when you obviously have a choice and you always choose the one who looks like you, then that’s obviously a part of the appeal—which is not the fault of the teacher, but the student.

.... It’s also the opposite, as maybe I said, as to what you expect with Western eyes, as is obvious on reflection. The narrow-minded new ager’s eyes will always alight upon the evil of America and “this culture”, whereas the poor of India might know that they have in their midst something amiss....

.... Sometimes Americans think India is the future and Indians think America is the future.

.... Though of course there are limits to that; he was involved in not just Hinduism per se but everything involved with his native land—

“‘How can I best help you,’ she asked the Swami when she arrived in India. ‘Love India,’ was his reply.”

.... “‘You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with immense practicality.’”

I suppose the summary of this Swami is the value of nurturing opposites.

.... Although to put it in Christian language and to simplify, (there’s always another angle with this sort of thing), Vivekananda really convicted me that faith without works is dead.

.... Man, quarantine is real downer. All I can do is read books about how I’m supposed to get off my butt!

Me: You don’t understand; we can’t leave the house!
James: Is your faith.... bedridden?

Jk

Luther: I don’t like James, and this proves it! Fool, God is alienating everything from himself through Christ Jesus!

I like Lutheranism but Luther had a few bad days lol. Hmm, who do I like better: the brother of the Lord, James the Just, or Mr Temper Tantrum on his shitty days.

Gosh, I don’t know.

Anyway we certainly gave Narendra a lot of grief—maybe when this Parliament of Religions happens we can smite all the brown faiths once and for all—but in every age there is some reconciliation between the races.… (mehr)