Swami Vivekananda

Narendranath Datta, a Calcutta graduate and disciple of the ecstatic Ramakrishna, became Swami Vivekananda and taught in “Raja Yoga,” “Jnana Yoga,” “Karma Yoga” and “Bhakti Yoga” that each soul is potentially divine, that religion is the realization of that divinity by one of four paths, and that the dualist, qualified non-dualist and non-dualist schools are stages on one ascent whose summit is Shankara's Advaita. Religion must be verified by experience as science is by experiment, scriptures are maps and not the country, and images and rituals are lower steps that are not to be despised. He held that it is a sin to call a man a sinner, that all religions are true and converge, that service of the poor is service of God (daridra narayana), and that India's mission to the world is spiritual while her task at home is strength, education and the lifting of the masses; he called himself a socialist for want of anything better and founded the Mission in 1897 to join contemplation with relief.

Why he matters: He created the Hinduism most Westerners know, in which all religions are paths to one summit, and the Catholic reply to that claim, from Monchanin's Shantivanam to Abhishiktananda's “Saccidananda” and Dominus Iesus, was written with him in view; his insistence that religion be tested by experience and issue in service is a challenge Catholic India took up in its own ashrams. Nostra Aetate's praise of Hindu “searching philosophical inquiry” and its warning against indifferentism are both addressed to his heirs.