Book Summary: Reflections by Swami Vivekananda
Reflections by Swami Vivekananda is a collection of his various speeches across America, his letters, his articles on Hinduism and India, and his views on various political and philosophical topics. Prior to this book, I had only read a couple of books by Swami Vivekananda that was like a short summary of his views and had no idea of his writing whatsoever. Delving into this book, I expected that it might be atheistic in nature and would talk more about the philosophy of life rather than the philosophy of religion. I was both right and wrong.
Swami Vivekananda speaks about Hinduism but unlike how the modern “Hindus” and Hindu nationalists portray him, he is the complete opposite. He explains Hinduism, Vedas, and Upanishads, the idea of God, the philosophy of Hinduism, and fables but he never enforces Hinduism as a religion. In his opinion, Hinduism is not a religion. It is a way of life and living and hence it is called a Sanātana Dharma (eternal tradition) and the teachings of Hinduism are the philosophies of Vedas, not the words of Jesus or the Prophet. Instead of a Personal God, Hinduism praises an Impersonal God. Because of this quality, throughout history, Hinduism never became an organized religion like Christianity and Islam, and this is evident from the fact that Hindu nations never waged war on any other nation to spread their ideology. This also helped Hindus to absorb the qualities of other religions and other ideologies and change with the flow of time.
One can clearly observe the atheistic qualities of Hinduism in debates of atheists against theists. Listen to the debates of famous atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens and they always debate against Christianity and Islam because there is a point of origination in them - Jesus and the Prophet respectively. But you can never find their arguments against Hinduism because in a true sense there is no person who started Hinduism. Philosophies started Hinduism. And all there is written in Vedas is how to connect with yourself, how to be more spiritual, and how to be a good social player. The only arguments they have made against Hinduism are in the context of a person or the organization of Hinduism - like Hindu saints who turned out to be sexual assaulters, cow vigilantes, VHP, Hindu Mahasabha, etc.
Swami Vivekananda has also made a nice case of why Western philosophers don’t credit Indian philosophy and why Indian philosophy and ancient Hindus declined, resulting in the Hindu nation's death. He has some great views on education, politics, and Indian history. Reading between the lines you can see how modern politics bend his words to make him sound like a modern-day Hindu nationalist, which he clearly was not. In fact, in many places, he has delineated how religious fanatics are created and Hindu religious fanatics can exist.
Other than that, it has many nice philosophies. The only part of this book that I did not like was when it got more religious than spiritual and philosophical. But from the point of view of Swami Vivekananda and his life and work, that makes sense. Overall, it was a nice and warm read.