The philosophy of Vedanta is as profound and mysterious as India, the ancient country of its origin. India, a land with unknown beginnings, is a suitable home for such a timeless philosophy.

As we are truly becoming a global village, the universal message of Vedanta’s main principles increasingly resonate with the world at large. Particularly since it stresses the universal truths common to all religions instead of the differences that divide them, its teachings are indispensable to a world fragmented by opposing beliefs, where these apparent differences are causing endless strife, conflict, and war.

The core Vedantic ideas of unity of existence, universality of religious truth and our indwelling divine nature no longer seem as strange to us as they did only 75 or 100 years ago when the general belief was that God was distant, in His heaven, and "the judge of the earth." Many in the West who want a better understanding of God in human affairs no longer subscribe to this model, but feel that God may not be so distant after all. This is a momentous step forward. These and other related beliefs have been slowly filtering into Western consciousness, principally through the influence of Vedanta and other Eastern wisdom teachings.

An important example of this subtle influence may be seen in our political thinking. The ideal of democracy was unknown, even in the West, just over two centuries ago. So democracy is a rare flowering of political institutions, perhaps achieving its best statement in the Declaration of Independence, powerfully expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s words:

One wonders how Jefferson, an advanced thinker of his time, was inspired by these concepts, which clearly reflect Vedantic principles. Those truths were not self-evident to the mass of humanity then, and to much of it even today. On the other hand, the principles of spiritual democracy, of the divine presence dwelling in all beings are self-evident to the mystic and the Vedantist.

Swami Vivekananda, the great modern expounder of Vedanta philosophy, spent four years of his short life in the United States. Significantly, after returning to India, he chose to leave his physical body on July 4, 1902 in tribute, we believe, to the American ideals as expressed in the Declaration.

We may ask, what’s the use of this knowledge? How can we possibly apply the insights of these ancient teachings in our day-to-day lives? There is the greatest use. We have to know what the Truth, the highest principle, is in order to be guided by it during our long voyage over the seas of life. Then, though we may falter many times, we look up and, like the North Star, it is there, guiding us back to the path. Gradually, we begin to incorporate something of the spiritual power of that Truth into the texture of our lives.