Swami Vivekananda and Modern Problems
(Concluded)

Environmental pollution and denigration
The problem was scarcely recognized at the end of the nineteenth century, but one can extrapolate from nearly all that Swamiji said about life styles and conspicuous consumption. He was a realist and knew very well that we cannot have something for nothing. "The misery of the world is like chronic rheumatismchase it from one area, it shows up in another, " he said. If he were here today to face the problem in its ripest stage, there is little doubt that he would be an "environment-alist", and surely would remind us that we are going to be the inheritors of our own mess, allowing the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation. And one may imagine the almost acid tones with which he would refer to the population explosion and accent the role of self-control in its solution.
The same is true of fiscal irresponsibility. Do you remember that he upheld the value of the caste system as regards its original ideal and concept? That the caste member who attained to wealth or status was under the dharmic obligation to help raise the whole community from which he had risen and which had launched his struggle? Then how can we provide only for our own offspring? That would be adopting the nuclear family framework of the West, not the best to emulate, in his mind. "Freedom is the first condition of growth;" he forcefully remarked one day, "what you do not make free can never grow." This applies to employees and dependents as well.

The question of male dominance and woman's status.
This defect the Hindus share with all the world's peoples, he acknowledged, as there is scarcely a culture which has not succumbed to it. He was one of the first of his era in the field of religion to recognize the indignity and oppression which woman was subject to, in this world of men. He had seen and studied the misery of his own sister, a suicide, and it had deeply affected his thinking. "If woman cannot act, neither can man suffer," he said; a fact now well-known in the statistics of psychology. There were times when Vivekananda's mind was dwelling in a transcendental realm, and those times gave rise to expressions like these: "There is neither man nor woman [in Vedanta] , for the soul is sexless... It is a lie to say that I am a man or a woman, or I belong to this country or that. All the world is my country, because I have clothed myself with it as my body."
Such was his sense of identity at that moment. He never tired of brushing off the well-meaning concerns of men who would ask him about "women's problems": "Hands off! " he exclaimed, "women will solve their own problems." Men had no business attempting to solve them for them.
In the United States he made a very interesting comment. He said, "American men profess to worship woman, but in my opinion they simply worship youth and beauty. They never fall in love with wrinkles and grey hair." By worship of woman, Sri Ramakrishna had meant, he assured us, that to him every woman's face was that of the Blissful Mother and nothing else. At the same time he could clearly see that in America alone there was now the social freedom to rise up and take equality with men. Swamiji met many women in the West, patrons, admirers, helpers, disciples and with all of them he dealt in his own natural and spontaneous way. They sometimes expected of him the gallant chivalry of that Victorian era, but he flatly refused. "You can take care of yourself, " he would say; "you are as able as I am, if not more." Swami Vivekananda was prophet enough to foresee what the twentieth century would bring. We can sum up the subject in his broad but telling generality: "Asia laid the germs of civilization. Europe developed man. America is developing woman and the masses."

Lack of religious identity
On this subject Swamiji had much to say. His years of wandering over his Motherland brought him to summarize what he considered the "Common Bases of Hinduism." These were: Belief in God (he once said with a bit of exasperation, "The Hindus can never give up His Majesty, the Lord of the Universe!"), belief in the Vedas as "revealed," the cyclic nature of time (yugas and kalpas in the macrocosm, reincarnation in the microcosm), and belief in all religions as valid paths because of the divinity of the human soul. Rather a minimal list, when one stops to think about it.
As regards scripture, Swamiji declared: "The proof of religion depends on the constitution of man, not on any books." What was the role of religion for a Hindu? "Religion, to help mankind, must be ready and able to help him in whatever condition he is." Then is there any place there for caste?
Above all, the Hindu is certain that we never go from falsehood to truth, but only from truth to truth. Be convinced of these and you are a Hindu.