PM Modi recalls Swami Vivekananda’s Chicago speech on Hinduism and tolerance

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said Swami Vivekananda had demonstrated the “salience of Indian culture” with his speech to the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, United States. Vivekananda delivered a series of acclaimed speeches on Hinduism and Indian culture at the first Parliament of the World’s Religions, held from September 11 to 27, 1893, at the insistence of Harvard University professor John Henry Wright. Wright had been impressed with Vivekananda’s knowledge and wisdom after inviting him to deliver a lecture at Harvard.

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The Prime Minister shared Vivekananda’s speeches at the World’s Parliament of Religions at Chicago on the official website of Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, founded by Vivekananda.

Vivekananda began his first speech to World’s Parliament of Religions on September 11, 1893, by expressing gratitude to the “sisters and brothers of America” for their “warm and cordial welcome.”

He then spoke at length about the “universal toleration” and other aspects of Hinduism, which he called as “mother of all religions.”

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He said he was proud to belong to a nation that has “sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth” and quoted lines from a hymn which he remembered from childhood: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

Vivekananda also quoted the Bhagavad Gita to denounce “sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, which he said had caused violence in the world and destroyed civilization. “Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now,” he said.

Vivekananda expressed hope that convention may prove to be the “death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”