Philosophy East and West

I am thankful to Professor Rambachan for responding to my comments. First of all, I retract my statement where I call one of the author's remarks to be a mocking of Swami Vivekananda's view. I apologize for this or any other comment that might project the author to be hostile toward Vivekananda. Some words are due regarding Rambachan's objection to my comparison of his work with that of Paul Hacker. Rambachan's questioning of the "continuity between neo-Vedānta and its classical roots" is the reason that [End Page 850] led me to compare his study with Hacker's neo-Vedānta thesis, which makes a similar argument.¹

It is not unreasonable to think that according to Rambachan Vivekananda's deviation from Śaṅkara was effected by factors other than a well-founded philosophical basis. Since Rambachan charges me with being an "unreliable guide" to his arguments, let me illustrate my point through his own words. Note the reason he gives for Vivekananda's search for an extra-scriptural source of Self-knowledge:

There is little continuity between Vivekananda and Śaṅkara with respect to the relation between śruti and brahmajñāna. … In an age when science, in the enthusiasm and arrogance of its youth, seemed ready to subject all areas of human knowledge to its criteria and methods, Vivekananda felt that faith in the śruti as the source of brahmajñāna was irrational. He sought to posit a process of attaining brahmajñāna that he felt had satisfied the demands of science. Not only does it fail to do this, but, in a much wider perspective, his analysis is unconvincing and unsatisfactory.²

The doctrine of four yogas is another major difference between Śaṅkara and Vivekananda pointed out by Rambachan. Note Rambachan's claim about Vivekananda's "principal concern" in propounding the doctrine:

Vivekananda's writings reveal that his principal concern in elaborating the four yogas as direct and independent means to mokṣa was to highlight what he saw as the liberal and universal claims of Vedānta. He wished to contrast this with the exclusivism, particularly of Christianity, that proclaimed only one way to freedom.³

Given this context, my essay was an attempt to emphasize the philosophical arguments and the ideas from the Upaniṣads cited by Vivekananda to put across his points. In doing so I was addressing the author's question about the "continuity between neo-Vedānta and its classical roots" and have not suggested anything to the effect of Rajiv Malhotra's characterization of neo-Vedānta mentioned by him.

Rambachan states that throughout my essay I am "reluctant to admit any historical influences on Vivekananda's thought, and especially if such influences originate outside India." The author pulls a straw man in imputing to me the views that Vivekananda was somehow "immune to the influences of his age" and that "his presentation of Advaita" was not so much informed by science. Far from it, I have agreed with the author that Vivekananda sought to reconcile Advaita Vedānta with science through his exposition of Rājayoga as a "scientific" method of religious inquiry and the call for "verification" of religious truth. In my essay, I have only argued that it is misleading to present Vivekananda's position on the insufficiency of scriptural study to be merely a move to satisfy "the demands of science" or a result of skepticism "inherited" from the Brahmo Samaj. I reiterate that it is [End Page 851] more helpful and fair to view Vivekananda's position on the insufficiency of scriptural study in the context of his own argument: namely that the knowledge of one's Self cannot be pursued as an object of any external source of knowledge including the scriptures.