On September 11, 1893, the world's first Parliament of Religions opened in Chicago. Representatives of such a variety of religious and spiritual traditions had never before been assembled in one place. Delegates from every part of the globe read speeches before a huge audience at the inaugural session. Thirty-first on the list was a young, unknown Hindu. When his turn came, he rose to say the words the spirit would move him to speak. "Sisters and Brothers of America," Swami Vivekananda began. What happened next was later described by a woman who was present that day. "I was at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893," she recalled. "When that young man got up and said, 'Sisters and Brothers of America,' seven thousand people rose to their feet as a tribute to something they knew not what."

It was two or three minutes before the applause subsided and Vivekananda could continue. His short speech on that historic occasion concluded with these words: "Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence…. I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal." Again a long and thunderous ovation.

WEST MEETS EAST

Vivekananda saved the deeper substance of his message for later sessions of the seventeenday convention. In his "Paper on Hinduism" on the 19th, he spoke of "the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes." He dwelt on the essence of Hinduism, which consists "not in believing, but in being and becoming." He went beyond the notion of mutual tolerance between religions to see them as parts of a single divinely guided evolutionary process. "Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man," he declared, "and the same God is the inspirer of all of them."

What Swami Vivekananda said was important and remains so, but more important was that he lived what he said. This is what those who heard him evidently felt even in such simple words as "Sisters and Brothers of America," when those words came from a consciousness that saw itself in all and recognized no divisions.

By the last decade of the nineteenth century, the transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau, the poetry of Whitman and the founding of the Theosophical Society had prepared the American mind for a message such as Vivekananda delivered. But before 1893, no one had spoken straight from the heart and soul of India. In retrospect, if we wish to assign a date to the first passionate meeting and embrace of the wisdom of the East and the vitality of the West in a world where the old separations are rapidly disappearing, the obvious choice is September 11, 1893. Until that day, there had been nothing like the sudden collapse of religious and cultural barriers that marked this first momentous, though now nearly forgotten "9/11".

108 YEARS LATER

In the century after Vivekananda's impassioned call for spiritual unity, the world changed visibly in many ways. The year after the Swami's short life on earth came to an end, for example, the Wright brothers flew the first airplane. This was one of many inventions which progressively annulled the distances that once made it possible for different cultures to develop almost in isolation from each other. Meanwhile, it looked as if the advancing steamroller of science might soon solve the problem of fanaticism and religious discord by making religion out-of-date and irrelevant, if it does not become extinct in a secular, materialistic civilization governed by economic and political forces. Citizens of the "developed" parts of the world could reasonably strike off religion, for all practical purposes, from the list of factors that might be expected to have much of an impact on the future.

This illusion was abruptly dissolved in the surrealistic nightmare of September 11, 2001, when the mightiest nation on earth reeled under blows delivered to it in the name of Allah. The scientific advances of the last century merely supplied the technology that made the attack so devastating. The old-fashioned zealotry that motivated the terrorists, though mixed with modern-style political grievances, illustrated Vivekananda's paradoxical observation: "The intensest love that humanity has ever known has come from religion, and the most diabolical hatred that humanity has known has also come from religion." Not only were the issues that had been addressed at the Parliament of Religions on the same date so many years earlier shown to be still dangerously unresolved, but it was dramatically demonstrated that religious animosities can now wreak havoc on a scale undreamed of in the past.

JUST A COINCIDENCE?

Is the startling coincidence of the dates of these two "9/11"s, separated by exactly 108 years (a mystical number in the Indian tradition), trying to tell us something? What are we to make of the juxtaposition of two diametrically opposite events, the one an outburst of the sense of unity, the other an eruption of all that contradicts that sense, and both in the name of religion?

Even without indulging in "magical thinking," we are free to find here the symbolism we choose, preferably the one that helps us to confront this crisis most creatively. Taken at face value, the September 11 coincidence looks like a rude reminder of the unfinished agenda left over from the long-forgotten Parliament of Religions. The prospect of a world free from sectarianism and its violent offshoots seems as distant as ever, and the consequences of religious divisions are not becoming less serious. Stated in the most general terms, the obvious message is that religion is not a secondary issue that can be left aside or given perfunctory attention until the practical problems of life have been solved.

If religion is not going away any time soon, the question is whether it is going to unite us or divide us, to be an agent of progress or regression. The word "religion" should be understood in the broadest sense of humanity's ways of approaching a higher unseen reality, with all the implications that has for our attitudes and actions. Religion according to this definition is essentially an attempt to come into contact with a consciousness beyond our limited minds. It points to our evolutionary future and ought to be the most transformative and unifying force in our individual and collective lives. The first September 11 gave a brief glimpse of this potential. Unfortunately, religions have tended in practice to work for separation more than unity and have been too preoccupied with sanctifying and perpetuating the past to take a leap towards the future. Worse still, they have been used all too often as an excuse for the most destructive impulses in human nature to go on the rampage. The recent September 11 was an extreme instance.

Focusing on religion does not mean underestimating the need to recognize and deal with other factors in our global predicament, such as economic disparities and political imbalances that are not only wrong in themselves but contribute to resentments that may motivate acts of violence. A worldwide spiritual advance would hardly be possible without breakthroughs in other areas. Coming from a country suffering under foreign rule and exploitation, Vivekananda was acutely aware of this. At the Parliament of Religions he announced one day: "I came here to seek aid for my impoverished people." He added, "it is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion." To those who were not starving, however, he spoke of religion and philosophy as means of inducing the human family to begin to work together at last to create a more harmonious world.

NONDUALITY

In "Deeper Causes: Exploring the Role of Consciousness in Terrorism" (IONS Review, June-August 2003), Harvard psychiatrist John Mack speaks of "the dualistic, dichotomizing, or polarizing habit of mind" that "divides the world into conflicting polaritiesgood and evil, God and the Devil, for or against, friend or enemy, deserving or undeserving." He contends that "it is expressions of dualistic thinking … that have given rise to the present dangerous crisis." This underscores the direct relevance of the message of September 11, 1893 to what Mack describes as the "race to the future between the forces of destruction and creation" which we are now witnessing. For what Vivekananda brought to the shores of the New World was the philosophy and practice of nonduality, known in India as Advaita. This is the consciousness of one Self, one indivisible Reality manifesting itself in the endless multiplicity of the universe. This seemingly abstract concept could turn out to have far-reaching consequences if it takes hold of the human mind and inspires the growth of a living sense of that unity in diversity which is our hope for the future.

Explaining the idea of nonduality from a modern standpoint, Vivekananda argued in his "Paper on Hinduism": "Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter; and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul." Vivekananda saw all science as "nothing but the finding of unity." Having reached a monism of matter, leaving out consciousness, science cannot stop there; it must go on to arrive at a monism of consciousness.

This knowledge, arrived at by methods no less rigorous in their own way than those of the physical sciences, can be found at the mystical core of all the great religions. In India, it has been preserved from ancient times by an unbroken tradition of living, constantly renewed experience. But it has long been possessed only by individuals pursuing liberation, while the rest of society was allowed to stagnate in an unprogressive groove. Vivekananda wanted not only to bring India's spiritual knowledge to the West, but to take back with him to his own country the Western insistence on applying knowledge to life.

SECTARIANISM, BIGOTRY, FANATICISM

The opening of the Parliament of Religions in 1893 was signalled when a replica of the Liberty Bell tolled ten times, once for each of the major religions represented. This was the bell Swami Vivekananda referred to when he said, "I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions…." Fanaticism and persecution sum up two sides of what has gone most conspicuously wrong with religion in the course of its long and sometimes bloody history. Vivekananda's repeated, emphatic references to fanaticism in his speech on September 11 ring with a new urgency and seem eerily prophetic, now that an anniversary of that date has been marked by the most horrendous act of fanaticism of all time.

"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth," he had lamented. This series of words for degrees of intolerance is worth noting, for it suggests a possible approach to dealing with the problem.

These three terms sectarianism, bigotry and fanaticism define a scale of religious narrowness from its mildest form to its most unreasonable and belligerent. Under normal circumstances only the violent fanatic poses a direct danger to society, and even fanatics are not usually violent. But the moderate degrees of religious exclusiveness lead to the more extreme, and a climate of sectarianism is needed for bigotry and fanaticism to flourish. If fanaticism is to disappearand it now seems clear enough that no civilized world-order can be secure until it doessectarianism and bigotry must also go. To bring this about, the most effective strategy might be to start with sectarianism in its most moderate, respectable, subtle and pervasive manifestationsperhaps even in our own minds.

THE UNIVERSAL MIND

For we are contributing to the problem even if we do no more than to indulge in "uncharitable feelings," as Vivekananda put it, towards "persons wending their way to the same goal." States of consciousness are contagious, for better or worse. This is exemplified by the otherwise inexplicable thrill that ran through the audience at the Parliament of Religions when Vivekananda had spoken only a few words. As he once said: "The mind is universal. Your mind, my mind, all these little minds, are fragments of that universal mind, little waves in the ocean; and on account of this continuity, we can convey our thoughts directly to one another…. Part of our energy is used up in the preservation of our own bodies. Beyond that, every particle of our energy is day and night being used in influencing others."

Vivekananda's call to widen our minds and hearts was not just an appeal for intellectual broadmindedness and humanistic sympathy. It was not a compromise with rationalism, an imposition of secular values on the religious mentality. His aim was to uplift and purify the religious spirit from within. For sectarianism in thought, word or act undermines the deepest purpose of religion, which is to bring our limited human consciousness into relation with a consciousness that is divine and illimitable.

It is not a question of watering down the strength of our convictions or wavering in the pursuit of our chosen path. On the contrary, it is a matter of living what we believe, while recognizing at the same time that the Infinite can and must be approached by and revealed to finite minds in many ways, religious or otherwise, each true as far as it goes without excluding the truth of the others. Diversity of views is essential for the vitality of our existence as thinking beings. The variety of mythologies and rituals found in the world's religions is a component of the rich cultural life of the human race. But as Vivekananda said in Chicago: "It is the same light coming through glasses of different colors." The same idea was expressed by Ibn 'Arabi as far back as the thirteenth century: "If the believer understood the meaning of the saying 'the color of the water is the color of the receptacle', he would admit the validity of all beliefs and he would recognize God in every form and every object of faith." (Fusus al-Hikam)

THE REAL JIHAD

Religious fervor diverted from its legitimate function of seeking for God, put at the service of sectarian rigidity and usually mixed with other quite irreligious motives, makes up the poisonous concoction we call fanaticism. The fanatic fights blindly for the letter of his creed as he interprets it, while making a travesty of its spirit. He assumes that the enemy is outside and does not notice that he has fallen into the trap of the enemy within.

Yet a "fanatical" zeal turned in the right direction, to the true jihad to convert the element in us that betrays our higher self, might lead to a very different result. Sri Aurobindo went so far as to write in The Synthesis of Yoga:

The ideal sadhaka [spiritual aspirant] should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, "My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up." It is this zeal for the Lord … that devours the ego and breaks up the limitations of its petty and narrow mould for the full and wide reception of that which it seeks, that which, being universal, exceeds and, being transcendent, surpasses even the largest and highest individual self and nature.

This is the state of consciousness referred to by Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions when he said that "to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go."

THE FUTURE OF RELIGION

If Vivekananda had gone to Chicago merely to call for an end to the obvious vices of religious narrow-mindedness and intolerance, it might have seemed a waste of time and energy for such a yogi to travel so far to say what any sensible person could have said, adding only the charisma of his undoubtedly remarkable personality. But his real work was to bridge the gap between oriental and occidental civilizations and to plant the seed of a vision of our spiritual possibilities that has had a steadily growing influence since his time and has the potential to change the world.

Three aspects of the vision which he unveiled to the West at the convention in 1893 deserve special mention. The first is the perception that scientific investigation and spiritual seeking are complementary, not antagonistic. The key to harmonizing them lies in the second aspect. This is a feature of the ancient yogic tradition of India: an insistence on experiencing and not merely believing in the truths that religion offers to us. The third aspect, a corollary of the first with far-reaching implications only hinted at by Vivekananda himself, is the synthesis of the modern discovery of biological evolution with the spiritual truth of the evolution of the soul towards divinity.

The increasing pressure of these ideas on religious thought, with or without an acknowledgment of Vivekananda's pioneering role in articulating them, is contributing to the reduction of sectarian exclusiveness and dogmatism and a reorientation away from clinging to the past towards the vistas of the future. It is conceivable that religions in the doctrinal forms in which we now know them may eventually disappear with the extension of knowledge and the evolution of consciousness. But alongside the spread of psychological and spiritual disciplines not connected with any religion, the distinctive genius of each religion is likely to survive in some form because of the eternal truth it represents.

Religion has strongly reinforced human disunity and the dualistic thinking that jeopardizes our collective ability to solve the unprecedented problems of a global civilization. Yet it may also hold the key to the transcendence of such thinking. This potential could be fulfilled if religion becomes able, in Vivekananda's words, to "recognize divinity in every man and woman" and to find its "whole scope, [its] whole force … in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature."

INDIA'S AMBASSADOR

Vivekananda was uniquely equipped to be India's first spiritual ambassador to the West, as he has been called. His brilliant intellect, inspired eloquence, spiritual depth and compelling force of personality were matched by his disarming humility. He claimed no personal credit for his achievements, but ascribed them to the greatness of the living spiritual tradition of India, of which he was a spokesman. Once, talking about the ancient Indian science of the powers of the mind, Raja-Yoga, he spoke of the years of hard struggle it had taken him to master it: "Sometimes I worked at it twenty hours during the twenty-four…. And yet I know little or nothing; I have barely touched the hem of the garment of this science. But I can understand that it is true and vast and wonderful."

There were two ingredients in the magic of September 11, 1893. One was the presence of Vivekananda himself, who embodied India's spirituality rising to meet the challenges of the modern world. He was the instrument of a force about which he said not long before he left India, "such a great power has grown within me that sometimes I feel that my whole body will burst." The other ingredient was the openness, enthusiasm and generosity of the American people who spontaneously recognized the authenticity of one who greeted them as his sisters and brothers.

"In America is the place, the people, the opportunity for everything new," Vivekananda once remarked. His biographer Swami Nikhilananda observed: "It is one of the outstanding traits of Americans to draw out the latent greatness of other people. America discovered Vivekananda and made a gift of him to India and the world." What happened in Chicago in 1893 not only flooded the American consciousness for the first time with the light from the East. It also stimulated a renaissance in India itself by restoring self-confidence to a great subjugated people, and it had repercussions around the globe.

After leaping to sudden fame at the Parliament of Religions, Vivekananda worked intensively and untiringly for a spiritual awakening in America and England and in his own country, which was overwhelmed by foreign rule, social stagnation and a heart-rending poverty whose eradication was among the Swami's first priorities. He exhausted himself physically, leading to his early departure from the body on July 4th, 1902, at the age of 39.

THIS BEAUTIFUL EARTH

Swami Vivekananda wanted to see this beautiful earth of ours freed from the "demons" that have long possessed it in the name of religion. These demons are still with us; let us hope that at last "their time is come," as he told a spellbound audience at the Parliament of Religions. But he wanted this change to be the result, not of diluting or abandoning the spirit of religion, but of enlarging and heightening it.

The spontaneous clasp of civilizations that occurred on September 11, 1893, was far less spectacular than the cataclysmic events of its 108th anniversary. Yet it may prove to have more enduring long-term consequences. It visibly marked the beginning of a movement towards the spiritual unity of the human race, transcending religious and cultural divisions without abrogating religious and cultural diversity. In spite of all setbacks, this has been gathering momentum ever since then. What began one day long ago in Chicago will be fulfilled only when religion ceases to be a divisive force and becomeseach religion in its own way and adapting itself to the needs of each individuala means of realizing a consciousness where boundaries and barriers vanish, a consciousness often associated with a sense of the universal divine Presence of which Vivekananda spoke:


Quotations from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda and from Swami Nikhilananda's VivekanandaA Biography have been taken from the website www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info.

RICHARD HARTZ has an M.A. in Asian Languages and Literature from the University of Washington. He has lived since 1980 in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India, and is an editor of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.