Mysticism can become the religion of the future

In the 19th century, the main focus of religion was on reason; in the 20th century it focused on humanism. If anyone were to ask me what type of religion will play a vital role in the 21st century, my answer would be mysticism.
Mystics commune with god through love and contempla­tion. Sri Ramakrishna sa­id about mystics, “All jackals in the world howl in the same way.” In other words, mystics of different religions may sp­eak different languages, but their experience of oneness is al­ways the same.
Today ma­ny people in the west avoid organised re­ligion because it seems to be po­lluted by corruption and politics. Monistic Vedanta has ne­ver been an organised religi­on; it depends on experien­ce and is not confined to any per­sonal god, prophet, or bo­ok. Re­ferr­ing to inter-religious re­lations, Swami Nikhilan­anda wr­ote, “Religions are hu­man in­stituti­ons (and) cannot be ab­solutely perfect, but god is pe­rfect. Re­ligion is not god, but shows the way to god. It is said that satan was once asked how he would tempt a possessor of pure tru­th, and he re­plied that he wo­uld tempt him to organise it.”
Some western thinkers ha­ve predict­ed that doctrine, dog­ma, and ritual will not be able to sustain religion in the 21st century. Be­cause the Up­anish­adic reli­gion is univer­sal and fr­ee from doctrine, dog­ma, or creed, it will attract the wor­ld’s liberals and intellectuals.
Is there any di­ffer­ence bet­ween the Vedanta tau­ght by Shankara and by Vi­veka­nan­da? Shankara es­tab­lished his non-dualistic philosophy by refuting 72 sc­hools of thought; Swamiji tau­ght the same non-dualism th­rough his jnana yoga and oth­er lectures. He prese­nted the ess­ence of the Up­anishads to his western au­diences in a language that they could un­der­stand. Accor­ding to the need of the age, Swamiji taught the moral, ethical, spiritual, practical, and universal aspects of Vedanta: the divinity of the soul, the uni­ty of existence, the oneness of godhead, and the harmony of religions.
Seeing narrowness, bigotry, and various ki­nds of superstition among the dualistic religions, Swamiji said, “The monistic idea will co­me out of Vedanta, and it is the one idea that deserves to live. For this is the truth, and truth is eternal. And truth it­self teaches that it is not the special property of any individual or nation.... Dualistic ideas have ruled the world long en­ough, and this is the result. Why not make a new experiment? It may take ages for all mi­nds to receive monism, but why not begin now? If we have told it to 20 persons in our liv­es, we have done a great work.”
Despite the greatness of mo­nistic Vedanta, it will never appeal to the masses because this ideal is too lofty for ordinary people.
On 8 April, 1900 in San Francisco, Vivekananda gave a lecture entitled Is Vedanta the Future Religion? In this lecture, Swamiji pointed out that three things are necessary to make a religion: a book (scripture), a prophet, and a personal god. First, Vedanta does not believe that any one book can contain all the truths about god, the soul, and the ultimate reality. It says that all scriptures are in the category of lower knowledge, and that higher knowledge is the experience of the ultimate reality. Second, Vedanta pays respect to all the great souls of the world, but no one man or woman has ever become an object of worship among Ved­antins. So there is no parti­cular prophet in Vedanta. Th­ird, Vedanta teaches a demo­cratic god: Its god is not a mo­narch sitting on a throne. Ve­danta teaches that the god, who is in everyone, has be­co­me everyone and everything.
Observing the American love for democracy, Swamiji said, “There is a chance of Ve­danta becoming the religion of your country be­cause of demo­cracy. But it can become so on­ly if you can and do clearly un­derstand it, if you become real men and women, not people with vague ideas and super­stitions in your br­ains, and if you want to be truly spiritual, since Vedanta is concerned only with spirituality.” He said, “No book, no person, no personal god. All these must go. Worship everything as god — every form is his temple. All else is delusion. Always look within, never without. Such is the god that Vedanta preaches, and such is his worship.”
In 1976, during the bicentennial celebration of the US, the Smithsonian Institution pu­blished a volume entitled Ab­road in America: Visitors to the New Nation (1776-1914) that recorded the contributions of famous visitors to the US. Among them, Swami Vivekan­an­da was the only Indian.
At present, we need some genuine teachers in the west who can demonstrate the universal teachings of Vedanta.
Sister Nivedita, Vivekanan­da’s Irish disciple, wrote to Jo­sephine MacLeod on 11 April, 1906, “You see, when we who understood Swamiji and reme­mber him are dead, there will come a long period of obscurity and silence, for the work th­at he did. It will seem to be forgotten, until suddenly, in 150 or 200 years, it will be found to have transformed the west.”
Swami Vivekananda started the Vedanta movement in the west. One hundred years have passed since he left this world on 4 July, 1902. Still his immortal spiritual teachings are flowing in the veins of humanity. One year before his maha­samadhi, he said, “I have given them enough for fifteen hundred years.”

The writer is minister at Vedanta Society of
St Louis, Missouri