Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda on Vāmāchāra
Quotes from Sri Ramakrishna
Sri Ramakrishna: One must worship the Adyasakti. She must be propitiated. She alone has assumed all female forms. Therefore I look on all women as mother. The attitude of looking on woman as mother is very pure. The Tantra mentions the vamachara[6] method also. But that is not a good method; it causes the aspirant’s downfall. A devotee keeping an object of enjoyment near him has reason to be afraid.
[6] Foonote: Literally, “left-hand path”. According to this attitude the aspirant seeks to conquer lust by fulfilling its urge.
From Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, Wednesday, Feb 25, 1885
On another day, 23 March 1884, Sri Ramakrishna said to Rakhal, Ram and some other devotees, “Vaishnavcharan belonged to the Kartabhaja sect. When I went to that part of the country, to Shyambazar, I said to him, ‘I don’t like this. I have the attitude of a child with its mother.’ I noticed that they talk big and perform adultery. These people don’t like to worship the image of God — they prefer a living person. Many of them follow Radhatantra — the principles of the earth, fire, water, air and ether — excreta, urine, semen, sperm etc. are the principles of all these. It is a very bad practice — it’s like entering a house through the latrine.”
Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, Appendix, Vol 5, Original Bangla can be retrieved here, English translation, Hindi translation
Quotes from Swami Vivekananda follow here on.
Disciple: Sir, when you first returned from the West, in your lecture at the Star Theatre you sharply criticised the Tantras. Now by your supporting the worship of women, as taught in the Tantras, you are contradicting yourself.
Swamiji: I denounced only the present corrupted form of Vâmâchâra of the Tantras. I did not denounce the Mother-worship of the Tantras, or even the real Vamachara. The purport of the Tantras is to worship women in a spirit of Divinity. During the downfall of Buddhism, the Vamachara became very much corrupted, and that corrupted form obtains to the present day. Even now the Tantra literature of India is influenced by those ideas. I denounced only these corrupt and horrible practices — which I do even now. I never objected to the worship of women who are the living embodiment of Divine Mother, whose external manifestations, appealing to the senses have maddened men, but whose internal manifestations, such as knowledge, devotion, discrimination and dispassion make man omniscient, of unfailing purpose, and a knower of Brahman. “सैषा प्रसन्ना वरदा नृणां भवति मुक्तये — She, when pleased, becomes propitious and the cause of the freedom of man” (Chandi, I. 57). Without propitiating the Mother by worship and obeisance, not even Brahmâ and Vishnu have the power to elude Her grasp and attain to freedom.
Give up this filthy Vâmâchâra that is killing your country. You have not seen the other parts of India. When I see how much the Vamachara has entered our society, I find it a most disgraceful place with all its boast of culture. These Vamachara sects are honeycombing our society in Bengal. Those who come out in the daytime and preach most loudly about Âchâra, it is they who carry on the horrible debauchery at night and are backed by the most dreadful books. They are ordered by the books to do these things. You who are of Bengal know it. The Bengali Shastras are the Vamachara Tantras. They are published by the cart-load, and you poison the minds of your children with them instead of teaching them your Shrutis. Fathers of Calcutta, do you not feel ashamed that such horrible stuff as these Vamachara Tantras, with translations too, should be put into the hands of your boys and girls, and their minds poisoned, and that they should be brought up with the idea that these are the Shastras of the Hindus? If you are ashamed, take them away from your children, and let them read the true Shastras, the Vedas, the Gita, the Upanishads.
Disciple: Sir, I was under the impression that at least the injunctions of Manu were being obeyed all over India even now.
Swamiji: Nothing of the kind. Just look to your own province and see how the Vâmâchâra (immoral practices) of the Tantras has entered into your very marrow. Even modern Vaishnavism, which is the skeleton of the defunct Buddhism, is saturated with Vamachara! We must stem the tide of this Vamachara, which is contrary to the spirit of the Vedas.
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol 7, Conversations and Dialogues, From the Diary of a Disciple
There was a Buddhist monk who hailed from Ceylon and was then living in the Math. He asked Swami Vivekananda, “Sir, do you think that all the religions of the world have produced siddhas (the perfected ones)?” To this, Swamiji not only replied in the affirmative but emphasized this with many illustrations. He added, “Even in the condemned Vamachara Tantra there have been great siddhas. But you know, our Guru Maharaj (Shri Ramakrishna) used to say that that path is a dirty one.”
From Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda by Swami Sadashivananda
None of you are fit for the Vâmâchâra form of practice. Therefore this should on no account be practised at the Math. Anyone demurring to this must step out of this Order. This form of practice must never even be mentioned in the Math. Ruin shall seize the wicked man, both here and hereafter, who would introduce vile Vamachara into His fold!
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol 7, Epistles — 3rd series, 27-apr-1896, Part of Rules created for the Math.
Then there are the Tantras. The real meaning of the word Tantra is Shâstra, as for example, Kâpila Tantra. But the word Tantra is generally used in a limited sense. Under the sway of kings who took up Buddhism and preached broadcast the doctrine of Ahimsâ, the performances of the Vedic Yâga-Yajnas became a thing of the past, and no one could kill any animal in sacrifice for fear of the king. But subsequently amongst the Buddhists themselves — who were converts from Hinduism — the best parts of these Yaga-Yajnas were taken up, and practiced in secret. From these sprang up the Tantras. Barring some of the abominable things in the Tantras, such as the Vâmâchâra etc., the Tantras are not so bad as people are inclined to think. There are many high and sublime Vedantic thoughts in them. In fact, the Brâhmana portions of the Vedas were modified a little and incorporated into the body of the Tantras. All the forms of our worship and the ceremonials of the present day, comprising the Karma Kanda, are observed in accordance with the Tantras.
See that an atmosphere of perfect purity is always maintained, and that there enters not the slightest trace of Vâmâchâra.
Swami Vivekananda’s letter written to Swami Ramakrishnananda (Shashi), 20-Apr-1897
The Tântrika rites among the Tibetans that you have spoken of arose in India itself, during the decline of Buddhism. It is my belief that the Tantras, in vogue amongst us, were the creation of the Buddhists themselves. Those Tantrika rites are even more dreadful than our doctrine of Vâmâchâra; for in them adultery got a free rein, and it was only when the Buddhists became demoralised through immorality that they were driven away by Kumârila Bhatta. As some Sannyasins speak of Shankara, or the Bâuls of Shri Chaitanya, that he was in secret an epicure, a drunkard, and one addicted to all sorts of abominable practices — so the modern Tantrika Buddhists speak of the Lord Buddha as a dire Vamâchâri and give an obscene interpretation to the many beautiful precepts of the Prajnâpâramitâ, such as the Tattvagâthâ and the like. The result of all this has been that the Buddhists are divided into two sects nowadays; the Burmese and the Sinhalese have generally set the Tantras at naught, have likewise banished the Hindu gods and goddesses, and at the same time have thrown overboard the Amitâbha Buddha held in regard among the Northern School of Buddhists. The long and the short of it is that the Amitabha Buddha and the other gods whom the Northern School worship are not mentioned in books like the Prajnaparamita, but a lot of gods and goddesses are recommended for worship. And the Southern people have wilfully transgressed the Shâstras and eschewed the gods and goddesses. The phase of Buddhism which declares “Everything for others”, and which you find spread throughout Tibet, has greatly struck modern Europe. Concerning that phase, however, I have a good deal to say — which it is impossible to do in this letter. What Buddha did was to break wide open the gates of that very religion which was confined in the Upanishads to a particular caste. What special greatness does his theory of Nirvana confer on him? His greatness lies in his unrivalled sympathy. The high orders of Samadhi etc., that lend gravity to his religion are, almost all there in the Vedas; what are absent there are his intellect and heart, which have never since been paralleled throughout the history of the world.
Swami Vivekananda’s letter written to Swami Akhandananda, Feb 1890
Most of the afternoon we were compelled by a storm to spend indoors; and a new chapter was opened at Dulai in our knowledge of Hinduism, for the Swami told us gravely and frankly of its modern abuses and spoke of his own uncompro mising hostility to those evil practices which pass under the name of Vâmâchâra.
When we asked how Shri Ramakrishna — who never could bear to condemn the hope of any man — had looked at these things, he told us that “the old man” had said, “Well, well! But every house may have a scavengers’ entrance!” And he pointed out that all sects of diabolism in any country belonged to this class. .
Complete Works, Vol 9,
Excerpts from Sister Nivedita’s book, 18-Jun-1898.
Disciple: Can’t we call that attitude of the Buddha, too, another kind of fanaticism, sir? He went to the length of sacrificing his own body for the sake of a beast!
Swamiji: But consider how much good to the world and its beings came out of that ‘fanaticism’ of his — how many monasteries and schools and colleges, how many public hospitals and veterinary refuges were established, how developed architecture became — think of that. What was there in this country before Buddha’s advent? Only a number of religious principles recorded on bundles of palm leaves — and those too known only to a few. It was Lord Buddha who brought them down to the practical field and showed how to apply them in the everyday life of the people. In a sense, he was the living embodiment of true Vedanta.
Disciple: But, sir, it was he who by breaking down the Varnâshrama Dharma (duty according to caste and order of life) brought about a revolution within the fold of Hinduism in India, and there seems to be some truth also in the remark that the religion he preached was for this reason banished in course of time from the soil of India.
Swamiji: It was not through his teachings that Buddhism came to such degradation, it was the fault of his followers. By becoming too philosophic they lost much of their breadth of heart. Then gradually the corruption known as Vâmâchâra (unrestrained mixing with women in the name of religion) crept in and ruined Buddhism. Such diabolical rites are not to be met with in any modern Tantra! One of the principal centres of Buddhism was Jagannâtha or Puri, and you have simply to go there and look at the abominable figures carved on the temple walls to be convinced of this. Puri has come under the sway of the Vaishnavas since the time of Râmânuja and Shri Chaitanya. Through the influence of great personages like these the place now wears an altogether different aspect.
