A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE SAGES OF INDIA. 469succeeding Ramanuja, as it had been the watchword ofaH the prophets before Sankara. I do not know whySankara shorild be represented as rather exclusive ;I donot find anything in his writings which is exclusive.As in the case of the declarations of the Lord Buddha, thisexclusiveness that has been attributed to Sankara s teachingsis mo^t possibly not due to his teachings but to the incapacity of his disciples. This one great northern &A,ge ChaitanyaI will mention as the last and then finish. Herepresented the mad love of the Gopis. Himself aBrahmin, born of one of the most rationalistic familiesof the day, himself a professor of logic fighting and gaining, a word- victory for, this he had learnt from his childhood as the highest ideal of life and yet through themercy of some sagethe whole life of th^i, man becamechanged, he gave up his fight, his quarrels, his professorship of logic, and became one of the greatest teachers ofBhakti the world has ever known. Mad Chaitanya!His Bhakti rolled over the whole land of Bengal, bringingsolace to every one. His love knew no bounds. Thesaint or the sinner, the Hindu or the Mohammedan, thepure or the impure, the prostitute,the street walkerall had a share in his love, all jhad a share in his mercy,and even to the present day, although greatly degenerated,as everything does, yet his church is the refuge ofthe poor, of the downtrodden, of the outcast, of theweak, of those who have been rejected by all society.But at the same time, I must remark for truth s sakethat we find this. In the philosophicsects we findwonderful liberalism. There is not a man who followsSankara who will say that all the different sects of Indiaare really different. At the same time, he was a tremendous upholder of exclusiveness as regards caste. But with.