Swami Vivekananda Quotes
A Brahmin is not so much in need of education as a Chandala. If the son of a Brahmin needs one teacher, that of a Chandala needs ten.
Vivekananda, Swami. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Vol. 3, Advaita Ashrama, 1989, p. 193.
In 1877 Wasburn was dropped from the List of Ministers by the Unitarian Church. He had become quite atheistic.
It was not until this publication that people who suggested that discrimination and lack of education and opportunity might have something to do with the problem Blacks faced in society were regarded by many Americans as anything but left wing intellectuals.
He saw great similarities between the terrible Indian Caste system and the different socio-economic classes of the West. Brahmins are the high caste Indians and the Sudras are low caste.
There had been an Ethiopian aristocracy that via inbreeding had tended to have lighter skins and that created over the centuries a discriminatory society based on skin color. Although a brutal, criminal, dictator, he initiated some worthwhile reforms although his methods were reprehensible.
Many Indians follow a rigid caste system where all people are born and divided into 5 social castes which are immutable—there is no caste mobility. An “untouchable” –the lowest Indian Caste—even if he make a million dollars—is still an untouchable and the higher casts would have nothing to do with him. Most upper caste people would not allow an untouchable physician to treat him or an untouchable cook to prepare his food. The Caste system is illegal under Indian law, but the majority of the Indians still follow it.
The Caste System has been legally abolished in India yet hundreds of million Indians still follow it.
Paz was the Ambassador to India
Paz was the Ambassador to India. The caste system in India was outlawed by the Indian Constitution, and the government has made many effort at affirmative action to eliminate it put as Paz observed it is so ingrained in Indian tradition, culture and religion that it continues to persist.
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta (Bengali: [nɔrendronatʰ dɔto]), was an Indian Hindu monk. He was a chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He was a major force in the contemporary Hindu reform movements in India, and contributed to the concept of nationalism in colonial India. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. He is perhaps best known for his speech which began with the words "Sisters and brothers of America ...," in which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.
