Swami Vivekananda and Knowledge as the One Final Goal of Humankind

Abstract

In the opening lines of his essay “Karma-Yoga,” Swami Vivekananda claims that knowledge is the one goal of humankind. It is clear from the context of this claim that Vivekananda means to count knowledge—and spiritual knowledge in particular—as a final goal of humankind. His claim, then, is that spiritual knowledge is the one final goal of humankind. This claim seems inconsistent, however, with claims in other passages that count spiritual pleasure, freedom, and mokṣa itself as additional final goals. One interpretive strategy is to invoke Vivekananda’s kinship with Śaṅkara and count these states as ultimately identical. This interpretive strategy is problematic, however, for at least two reasons. First, several scholars advance convincing arguments against the view that Vivekananda’s nondualism is aligned with Śaṅkara. Second, reading Vivekananda as a nondualist in this context precludes further analysis that might be philosophically productive. The claim that spiritual knowledge is spiritual pleasure, for example, might be analyzed in terms of a part-whole relation. Part of spiritual knowledge is knowledge of the eternal bliss of ātman-brahman. To know the eternal bliss of ātman-brahman is to experience it, and to experience the eternal bliss of ātman-brahman is to attain spiritual pleasure. Part of spiritual knowledge, then, is spiritual pleasure. Other arguments might be advanced in support of the identity of spiritual knowledge and spiritual freedom as well, without simply assuming that Vivekanada disregards distinctions among these states.