Swami Vivekananda On the Essence of Hinduism

Swami Vivekananda is the Patriot-Saint of India. His' spiritual mission was to resurrect and re-orient Hinduism to the understanding of the modem minds and put her back as the Mother of Religions, as he declared in the Chicago Parliament of Religions. In the world at large, Hinduism came to be dishonoured and in India it was lost to the nation which had become mostly atheistic. 'In India', says Swamiji, 'there are said to be-three hundred millions of Vedantins. But if there were one in a thousand who had actually realised religion, this world would soon be greatly changed. We are all atheists, and yet we try to fight the man who admits it. We are all in the dark, religion is to us a mere intellectual assent a mere talk a mere nothing.