Nietzsche contra Vivekananda: The Will to Power

In Part II of Thus Spake Zarathushtra[1] Nietzsche introduces the concept for which he is most famous: the will to power (‘der Willie zur Macht’). There is no ‘being’, only ‘becoming’. Aristotle had postulated mutually exclusive categories:  a thing is either black or white. It cannot be both. Dualistic thinking is based on Aristotelian logic. Plato introduced the concept of ‘becoming’ in The Republic but the concept was fully conceived by Hegel: between black and white, there are many shades of grey, between ‘being’ and ‘nothingness’ there is ‘becoming.’ In his analysis of Nietzsche’s thought, Copleston remarks that reality in Nietzsche implies ‘becoming:

“Reality is becoming; it is we who turn it into being, imposing stable patterns on the flux of Becoming. And this activity is an expression of   the will to power. “[2]

We try to find order and meaning in a world which is devoid of both.  Nietzsche’s   ‘reality’ is phenomenal and empirical. It consists of change, flux, development or ‘becoming ‘.  This idea raises problems.  Being is existence. Change implies a background which is constant and stable. If you deny the constant, your reality is chaos, not a rational transition from one entity to another, e.g. animal to man or man to superman.  Nietzsche’s starting point is Schopenhauer’s concept of will. Schopenhauer had established the will as the primary datum of experience. He conceptualized the will as unintelligent; a blind striving that motivates everything in nature. It is never satisfied, forever disenchanted, so it brings suffering.   Nietzsche transforms the will into a life affirming will to power:

‘Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.’[3]

Our primal instinct is not the will to survive, to live, but the will to power:

‘Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would rend rocks asunder: It is called my Will.’[4]

 The weak serve the strong. Those who cannot be a law unto themselves will be forced to obey others. Nietzsche’s idea of redemption is unique:  The past is redeemed and transformed when the expression ‘it was’ changes to “thus would I have it... thus do I will it! Thus shall I will it!”[5]   The will to power has a cluster of attributes: It is centred in egoism, not altruism. This is ‘the wholesome, healthy selfishness that springeth from the powerful soul.’[6] It is rooted in independence and ambition. It is the celebration and assertion of self.  It is the ability and willingness to dominate others, to fight to get to the top of the heap, to be sovereign over others.  Zarathustra commands because he has ‘unlearnt’ how to obey.  The will to power is beyond good and evil.  If imposing our will on others causes them pain, it is justified.   This obviously implies a situation where competing wills try to dominate each other in a Hobbesian world. An equilibrium is reached where persons of approximately equal value come to a power sharing arrangement, a ‘union with others who are similar’ and conspire to gain mastery over the herd. They form a new oligarchy.  The will emancipates us from the prison house of the past and creates happiness for us because it spells personal growth, an overcoming of self, and the determination to achieve perfection.   It is not necessarily an attempt to gain power over others. It is a state of consciousness.  It has divergent manifestations. It is the ascetic’s struggle to master physicality, the artist’s mastery over his work.  The scientist who ‘feeds on acorns and the grass of knowledge for the sake of truth,’ and is willing to ‘suffer hunger of the soul’ is motivated by the will to power. He wants to control nature. Even the will to peace is just the will to self-preservation. To sum up, Nietzsche’s superman is a bit like Gulliver in Lilliput towering over the little people, crushing them like ants if that is necessary as he sculpts victory to the cadence of Wagner’s music.

It is difficult to discuss the will to power in the context of Vivekananda’s life and ideas. He was, even by utilitarian standards, the most successful of men, a force that shook the world.  Swami Nikhilananda has written a beautiful biography of  Vivekananda. The story of his journey to North America to attend the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago has been told many times, many ways.  I want to retell a few aspects based on Swami Nikhilananda’s biography because nothing illustrates the shallow limits of Nietzsche’s logic better than  Vivekananda’s journey to Chicago. The tale begins at the end of  Vivekananda’s pilgrimage across India. He swims through the shark infested sea, unafraid, to what is now called Vivekananda rock at Cape Comoran. As he sits on the rock, he thinks of his travels:

‘I traveled all over India. But alas, it was agony to me, my brothers, to see with my own eyes the terrible poverty of the masses, and I could not restrain my tears!  It is now my firm conviction that to preach religion amongst them, without first trying to remove their poverty and suffering is futile. It is for this reason – to find means for the salvation of the poor of India – That I am going to the America.’[7]

Vivekananda comes to Madras. His disciples support his plan to go to North America and raise funds. The Raja of Khetri anoints him with the name of Swami Vivekananda and gifts him a turban and ocher raiment of fine silk.   Vivekananda arrives in Chicago and is told that the Parliament of Religions which was to be held on July 31, 1893 has been postponed to September.  Apart from the date, he has another problem; He needs credentials certified by a recognized organization. He has none. As luck would have it, it is too late to register. He approaches the Theosophical Society for help. They refuse.  His meager purse is getting thinner.  An American he meets advises him to go to Boston as it is cheaper. In the train to Boston, the affluent Kate Sanborn is intrigued by this regal, picturesque man in fancy dress.[8] She invites him to her home. Vivekananda meets many people at her house including Professor Wright of Harvard.  Wright is impressed by Vivekananda’s extraordinary intellect and erudition. He writes to several influential people asking them to help him get the necessary credentials: ‘Here is a man more learned than all our learned professors put together.’ He says to  Vivekananda: ‘To ask you, Swami, for your credentials, is like asking the sun about its right to shine.’[9]

 Vivekananda  goes to Chicago but he has mislaid the address of the organizing committee responsible for delegates. Basically, he is stranded again.  He  spends the night in an empty wagon, hungry. Forgetting that he is in a strange country, he goes begging for food in the time honored tradition of Hindu monks and has doors slammed in his face.  His clothes are dirty. His unshaven face gives him the look of a tramp up to no good. Finally he sinks into a side wall utterly spent. Mrs Hale, an influential lady living in the house opposite, notices him. She guesses that he must be a delegate to the Parliament.  Vivekananda,  childlike as always pours out all his troubles. Mrs Hale sees to it that he gets a hot breakfast, bath and fresh clothes. She then takes him to the offices of the Parliament of Religions. Vivekananda is introduced to Dr. Barrows, the president of the Parliament. Thereafter he is accepted as a delegate representing Hinduism. 

 Vivekananda  attended the Parliament in the clothes the Raja of Khetri had gifted him: A red turban, ocher robe and scarlet sash. It had not occurred to anyone that these clothes might look a bit odd amidst the suits in Chicago. Vivekananda carried them off with grace and dignity. At the Parliament, he kept postponing his speech. He had never addressed a public gathering before. It had not occurred to him to prepare a speech.  His opening words ‘Sisters and brothers of America’ got a two minute ovation from the seven thousand people assembled. The rest is history.  Vivekananda spoke on behalf of the oldest religion and order of monks in the world and in the name of millions of Hindu peoples. The applause after his speech was thunderous. A delegate was amazed by ‘the scores of women walking over the benches to get near him.’ She remarked that if the thirty year old Vivekananda ‘can resist that onslaught, (he is) indeed a God.’[10]  Christopher Isherwood talks of ‘a strange kind of subconscious telepathy that spread through the assembly.[11]   Romain Rolland captures the impact  Vivekananda  had:

‘His strength and beauty, the grace and dignity of his bearing, the dark light of his eyes, his imposing appearance and from the moment he began to speak, the splendid music of his rich, deep voice enthralled the wide audience...The thought of this warrior prophet of India left a deep mark on the U.S.’[12]

  Harvard and Columbia, both schools most people would kill to get into, offered to set up new departments with Vivekananda as head. He refused.  The greatest American intellectual of the time, William James listened intently to every word he spoke and called him ‘Master.’ James refers to Vivekananda  as ‘the paragon of Vedantists’ in his Varieties of Religious Experience.[13]  His work owes much to  Vivekananda’s  Raja Yoga.[14]   James organized a lecture for  Vivekananda  at Harvard. Apart from an extraordinary intellect,  Vivekananda  showed his sense of fun: Someone asked him: ‘Swami, what do you think about food and breathing?’  Vivekananda could hardly resist such a question. His reply is an absolute gem: ‘I am for both!’ [15]One of the greatest novelists of all time; Leo Tolstoy had this to say:

‘He is the most brilliant wise man, it is doubtful in this age that another man has ever risen above this selfless, spiritual meditation.’[16]

J. D.  Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, was mesmerized much like Gertrude Stein, John D. Rockefeller and Robert Ingersoll. The scientist Nikola Tesla met  Vivekananda  and was impressed by the similarity between the Sankhya philosophy of matter and the concept of energy in modern Physics.[17]   Vivekananda  had an emotional meeting with ‘the white haired sage’ Max Muller at Oxford. [18]How did this sudden adulation and luxury affect  Vivekananda? It made him even more intensely aware of the terrible poverty in India:

‘…what do I care for name and fame when my motherland remains sunk in utmost poverty? To what a sad pass have we poor Indians come when millions of us die for want of a handful of rice, and here they spend millions of rupees upon their personal comfort! Who will raise the masses of India? Who will give them bread? Show me, O Mother, how I can help them.’[19]

 In one incident, he was mistaken for a black and someone asked him why he didn’t tell them that he was not a Negro but a Hindu.  Vivekananda  was indignant; ‘What! Rise at the expense of another? I did not come to earth for that.’[20] There were lighthearted moments too because  Vivekananda never  lost his sense of mischief.  A student in Minneapolis asked him if Hindu mothers fed their children to crocodiles in the river. Vivekananda shot back: ‘Yes Madam! They threw me in, but like your fabled Jonah, I got out again. [21]

Life wasn’t easy for Vivekananda even after the Parliament of Religions. Jealousy prompted representatives of other religions and even Hindu sects to spread malicious gossip about him. The new movement he represented consisted only of half a dozen bedraggled young men with hardly enough clothes to cover their backs.  He was entirely dependent on donations and charity in the U.S. For this he needed his Indian followers to acknowledge him publicly as a genuine representative of Hinduism. It took Vivekananda almost a year to get this recognition. He asked his disciple Alasingha to organize a public meeting with prominent people, move a vote of thanks for his service to his religion and country. [22]It came, but it took months.  Many of Vivekananda’s admirers withdrew their support thinking him to be a cheat and an  upstart. Funds available to him dried up  which caused him a lot of hardship.  

His love for his people did not suffer because of this neglect. In London someone asked him; ’‘Swami, how do you like now your motherland after three years’ experience of the luxurious and powerful west?’  Vivekananda said: ‘India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust of India has become holy to me, the very air is now to me holy, it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha!’[23]  If anything, he was intensely aware of his identity as a monk; ‘I long, Oh, I long for my rags, my shaven head, my sleep under the trees, and my food from begging.’[24]

The sweep of Vivekananda’s vision was extraordinary.  He foresaw  the  consequences of the crisis of faith in the west. ‘The religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries.’ He conceptualized a vibrant ethical system grounded in reason. He went back to the roots of Vedantic thought and came up with ideas which were not only revolutionary but scientific. He was conscious of the magnitude of what he was doing: ‘I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.’  Margaret Noble, later Sister Nivedita, had this to say about her initial reaction to his talks:

‘Belief in the dogmas of Christianity has become impossible for us, and we had no tool, such as we now hold, by which to cut away the doctrinal shell from the kernel of Reality, in our faith. To these, the Vedanta has given intellectual confirmation and philosophical expression of their own mistrusted intuition. The ‘people that walked in darkness have seen a great light’…it was the Swami’s 'I am God' that came as something always known; only never said before.[25]

  Vivekananda went to North America with pennies in his pocket, a man no one had heard of and inspired the awe reserved for kings. He returned to India with name, fame and enough funds to buy the land on which  the Ramakrishna Math and Mission at Belur was built.  He put India on the world map as the mother of all religion and spirituality.  He was recognized and revered across the globe as the spiritual and intellectual giant he was.  How did he feel when he got home? When his boat landed in Aden en route to Sri Lanka, he saw a ‘pan wallah’ smoking a hookah as he went on shore.  This is something that he had missed when he was in North America.  Vivekananda went up to the vendor and said; ‘Brother, do give me your pipe.’ Mr Sevier was watching. He said: “Now we see! It was this that made you run away from us so abruptly!’[26]  The welcome he got when he reached home was tumultuous.  Did  Vivekananda puff up with pride? No. He was totally detached. He had been entrusted with a task and he had accomplished it. He offered all his work and achievements at the feet of  his guru,Sri Ramakrishna:

‘My teacher, my master, my hero, my ideal, my God in life, If there has been anything achieved by me, by thoughts or words or deeds, if from my lips has ever fallen one word that has ever helped anyone in the world, I lay no claim to it, it was his. But if there have been curses falling from my lips, if there has been hatred coming out of me, it is all mine, and not his. All that has been weak has been mine, all that has been life-giving, strengthening, pure and holy has been his inspiration, his words, and he himself. [27]

 His tribute is all ‘Thou’ and no ‘I.’ The heart and soul of his leadership ethic – if we can call it that, was ‘thou,’ not ‘I.’ His life is a living testament to his remark that ‘he who is the servant of all has the world at his feet.’ There are many paths to glory.  Vivekananda’s  trip to North America was not an expression of a will to power, unless it was a will to power for India and the whole, wide world.  His task was to make even the weakest living being realize that it was not the scum of the earth, it was God. There are no impregnable hedges around his words, ideas or life. Everything that he was, everything that he had, became the birth right of every soul that approached him.  I have highlighted the externals, the least important of  Vivekananda’s  attributes and achievements to emphasize that a life that is a blazing fire of renunciation can conquer the world in a way that Nietzsche can only dream of.  Vivekananda was no proselytizing monk. Every spiritual path, every religion is true. Ultimately, his ideas  boil down o verifiable intellectual  and ethical truth .

We live in a rational, scientific age. Reason demands that we recognize truth wherever we find it. An odyssey does not cease to be true because the ‘Mein Kempf’ comes from a monk committed to serve the scum of the earth, among other things.

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[1] Nietzsche, Friedrich (2009), Thus Spake Zarathushtra,(Mumbai, Wilco Press)

[2] Copleston, Fredrick, S.J. (1985), A History of Philosophy ,Fichte to Nietzsche ,Book III, Volume VII, (New York: Doubleday), p.408

[3] Nietzsche, op.cit, p.139

[4]Ibid.,p.137

[5] Nietzsche, op. cit., p. 174

[6] Ibid., p. 227

[7] Swami Nikhilananda, (2010), Vivekananda: A  Biography,(Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama),p.58

[8] Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit., p. 62

[9]ibid

[10] Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit., p.66

[11] Bardach, L, “What did J.D.Salinger, Leo Tolstoy and Sarah Bernhardt have in common?” The Wall Street Journal, WST Magazine, March 30, 2012

[12] Swami Adiswarananda, Swami Vivekananda in America,  www.Ramakrishna.org/sv-sa.htm

[13]London: Collier, 1961

[14]Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit. p. 104

[15] Bardach, op. cit

[16] Bardach, L, op. cit.

[17] Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit., p. 93

[18] Ibid, p. 105

[19] Ibid, p.68

[20] Ibid., p. 94

[21] Ibid.

[22] Swami Vivekananda, Letters of Swami Vivekananda,(2006), (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama).

[23] Ibid, p. 117

[24] Ibid., p.85

[25] Ibid, p. 113

[26] Ibid., p. 122

[27] Ibid, p.129