A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

408 VEDANTA IN INDIAN LIFE.is so intricate, the Sanskrit of the Vedas is soiancient andthe Sanskrit philology so perfect that any amount of discussion can be carried on for ages in regard to the meaning of any word. If a Pundit takes it into his head, anybody s prattle can be made into correct Sanskrit by force ofand quotations of text and rules. These are thein our way of understanding the Upanishads.*It was given to me to live with a man who wa as ardenta Dualist, as ardent an Adwaitist, as ardent a Bhakta andas ardent a Gnani. And living with this man, first put itinto my head to understand the Upanishadsand the textof the Scriptures from an independent and better basisthan blindly following the commentators ; and, in myhumble opinion and in my humble researches, I came tothis conclusion that these iexts are not at all contradictory.So we need not have any fear of text-torturingat all !They are beautiful, aye, they are most wonderful, and theyare not contradictory but wonderfully harmonious, oneidea leading to the other. But the one fact I found is thatin all the Upanishads you will find that they begin withDualistic ideas, with worship and ail that, and they endwith a grand flourish of Adwaitic ideas.Now, therefore, I find, in the light of this man s lifethat the Dualist and the Adwaitist need not fight eachother ;each has a place, and a great place in the nationallife ;the Dualist must remain ;he is as much part andparcel of the national religious life as the Adwaitist; onecannot exist without the other ;one is the fulfilment of theother ;one is the building, the other is the top the one;the root, the other the fruit and so on. Then again, anyattempt to torture the texts of the Upanishads appears tome very ridiculous, for I begin to find out that the language was so wonderful ; apart from all its merits as the