The text of
Swami Vivekananda’s address, in response to the welcome extended to him at the
Parliament of Religions in Chicago, on September 11, 1893
Sisters and Brothers of America:
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to
the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name
of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the
mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of
Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who,
referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from
far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the
idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the
world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal
toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a
nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and
all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our
bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took
refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to
pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has
sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I
will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have
repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of
human beings: “As the different streams having their sources in different paths
which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear,
crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”
The present convention, which is one of the most august
assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of
the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: “Whosoever comes to Me, through
whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the
end lead to me.”
Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism,
have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence,
drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent
whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human
society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and
I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour 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.