Scroll shitting on Vivekananda

Why could a handful of Britishers rule over hundreds of millions of Indians? Swami Vivekananda explained this to some people in New York in a speech given in 1896 

Scroll.In, which is registered in Delaware, has kindly reprinted an extract from that speech as part of its well-funded, if not well-executed, campaign to defame Hinduism.

Each of us must have a sect, and that sect is our own Ishta – our own chosen way...Take up one idea, your Ishta, and let the whole soul be devoted to it.

Cool. Indians will be devoting themselves to their Ishta while the Brits, who don't bother with any such thing, will ensure they don't starve or get conquered by harsher taskmasters.  

Practise this from day to day until you see the result, until the soul grows.

So sweet! Indians are growing souls only. Brits try to tell them to grow some potatoes or bananas but they insist on just growing souls. At least this Swami dude is celibate. He isn't growing his family so there will be lots more souls for the Brits to feed and protect.  

And if it is sincere and good, that very idea will spread till it covers the whole universe.

Only if the Brits annex the universe so as to make it a safe place for Hindoos to keep growing their souls.  

Let it spread by itself; it will all come from the inside out. Then you will say that your Ishta is everywhere and that he is in everything.

And Queen Victoriaji will be ruling over everything. 

Of course, at the same time, we must always remember that we must recognise the Ishtas of others and respect them – the other ideas of god – or else worship will degenerate into fanaticism.

As opposed to being mere foolishness. Still, it seems the Hindooos are content to respect the Ishta of the Brits to rule their land so they can concentrate on growing their souls.  

There is an old story of a man who was a worshipper of Shiva. There are sects in our country who worship god as Shiva, and others who worship Him as Vishnu.

But both don't have a problem with being ruled by Muslims or Brits or anyone else who happens to come along.  

This man was a great worshipper of Shiva,

Much good it did him. 

and to that he added a tremendous hatred for all worshippers of Vishnu and would not hear the name of Vishnu pronounced.

He should have emigrated. Nobody in Africa or China spoke of Vishnu. 

There are a great number of worshippers of Vishnu in India, and he could not avoid hearing the name.

Which is why he should have left India.  

So he bored two holes in his ears and tied two little bells onto them.

He was a very stupid man. He could just have screamed loudly and stuck his fingers in his ears if he saw any Vaishnavite approaching.  

Whenever a man mentioned the name of Vishnu, he moved his head and rang the bells, and that prevented his hearing the name.

People were constantly sneaking up on him and shouting 'Vishnu!' at which point the poor fool would shake his ears. But it would be too late. He'd have already heard that name.  

But Shiva told him in a dream, “What a fool you are! I am Vishnu, and I am Shiva; they are not different – only in name. There are not two gods.” But this man said, “I don’t care. I will have nothing to do with this Vishnu business.”

Which would have been cool if he was in some worthwhile line of business. Suppose he manufactured and sold life saving medicines. People would have soon learn not to mention Vishnu in his presence lest he refuse to sell them those medicines when they fell sick.  

He had a little statue of Shiva and made it very nice, built an altar for it. One day he bought some beautiful incense and went home to light some of the incense for his god. While the fumes (smoke) of his incense were rising in the air, he found that the image was divided into two: one half remained Shiva, and the other half was Vishnu. Then the man jumped up and put his finger under the nostril of Vishnu so that not a particle of the smell could get there.

By this point, the Swami's audience had fully understood why Hindoos needed the Brits to rule over them. Clearly the race was as stupid as shit. Idols can't smell anything. No Ishta can change this brute fact.  

Then Shiva became disgusted, and the man became (was turned into) a demon.

But some of Shiva's attendants are demons! Thus the guy got a promotion- from the Saivite p.o.v. 

He is known as the father of all fanatics, the “bell-eared” demon. He is respected by the boys of India, and they worship him.

Those boys of India ain't gonna be giving the Brits any trouble coz they'll be spending all their time growing their souls and following some stupid Ishta. 

It is a very peculiar kind of worship. They make a clay image and worship him with all sorts of horrible smelling flowers. There are some flowers in the forests of India which have a most pestilential smell.

Even Indian flowers are shitty! Good to know. Maybe Americans shouldn't envy the Brits their Indian Empire. The place is a shithole.  

They worship him with these and then take big sticks and beat the image.

Fanatics often wield 'big sticks' 

He (the “bell-eared” demon) is the father of all fanatics who hate all other gods except their own.

But only a particularly foolish fanatic would bother beating some silly image.

Why was Vivekananda talking about 'bell-eared' demons? The answer is that he was making fun of Christian missionaries. Like Tagore, he saw that Christianity and Islam were essentially aggressive religions which would not peacefully co-exist with other creeds. Stories of Vaishnav/Shaivite conflict gained currency because they were a covert way of opposing Islamic or Christian fanaticism. The fact is Saivite and Vaisnav prayers feature the names of all Hindu deities. Hindus knew that. Still, it was not always safe to criticize Islam or Christianity for considering the Deities of the Hindus to be be Satanic. 

If you read the full speech of Vivekananda, you find that he was discussing  Nishtha (निष्ठा) Bhakti. He was criticizing an irenic type of broadmindedness which, however, was shallow and ineffectual, while warning against a deep but bigoted type of devotion. Scroll.in aren't going to advertise the true meaning of Vivekananda's speech. They have taken an extract which fulfills their mission of shitting on Hinduism. That's what they get paid to do. But it isn't 'Gyana Nishta; nor is it  'Karma Nishta'. The Gita says

लोकेऽस्मिन् द्विविधा निष्ठा पुरा प्रोक्ता मयाऽनघ |ज्ञानयोगेन सांख्यानां कर्मयोगेन योगिनाम् ||

In this world, there are two types of effort whose fruits abide- there is effort to gain Knowledge and Wisdom and there is effort to do good works without attachment to the fruit. Scroll is doing what it is paid to do but without adding to Knowledge and merely for the sake of reward. They have tried to shit on Vivekananda but they have failed. Still, if they keep getting money for this- good luck to them.