“Love, Love–That’s The One Thing”

By Dawn Raffel

On a recent visit to Vedanta Society of Providence, the morning’s reading was from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda—specifically, the ending of a lecture given at Kumbakonam in 1897. As I listened, I was again reminded of how, even when addressing “current events” of the nineteenth century, Swami Vivekananda’s words seem urgently pertinent today. The lecture, titled “Mission of Vedanta,” begins by elucidating the spiritual underpinnings of Indian society, and goes on to stress the whole world’s need for awareness of the universality of religions and the oneness of all things.

The latter part of the lecture speaks to the topic of social reform in India. “Personally, I have no fault to find with these reformers,” he said. “Most of them are good, well-meaning men, and their aims too are very laudable on certain points; but it is quite a patent fact that this one hundred years of social reform has produced no permanent and valuable result appreciable throughout the country.” The error, he explained, is that real change can’t be affected by “platform speeches” and “denunciation.” It comes about only through spiritual progress, through love.

Although Swami Vivekananda was speaking about the travails of a different century, in different circumstances, in the East rather than the West, this wisdom applies more aptly to our very divided country than anything else I have heard. Many of my friends and colleagues are passionate in their political convictions. The arguments on both sides have grown increasingly heated. If we're being honest, the rhetoric, even among the most well-meaning of people, those who care deeply about their ideals, has too often devolved into a contest of clever yet hateful name-calling.

Sitting in the early morning calm of the Vedanta Society chapel post-meditation, my attention and heart were captured by Swami Vivekananda’s words of 128 years ago: “I must again draw your attention to the fact that cursing and vilifying and abusing do not and cannot produce anything good. They have been tried for years and years, and no valuable result has been obtained. Good results can be produced only through love, through sympathy.”

As I look at our angry, hurting country; our angry, hurting world; and our news and social media that encourages us to become even angrier, I can't help but think how right Swami Vivekananda is, as always. His contemporary, the American poet Walt Whitman, expressed similar wisdom in Leaves of Grass: “Be not dishearten’d, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet/Those who love each other shall become invincible.”

Regardless of our politics, we have got to learn to love one another, and ourselves, for the good of all, because we are one. It sounds simple, yet it is extraordinarily challenging to practice. “Close your lips and let your hearts open,” Swami Vivekananda said. I take this to mean that yes, we should serve others and strive for what we believe is right, but never with contempt or hatred for those with whom we disagree. Of all the worthy causes we might embrace, to carry and live by the message of Vedanta is the greatest.