# A contemporary Vedantic case for action

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH08.P018](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P018/#char=647,766): "The Indian saint may reasonably shut his eyes because he is looking at that which is I and Thou and We and They and It."

The inference from spiritual oneness to practical indifference was disputed by an Indian teacher before this book appeared. In [*Practical Vedanta*, Part I](https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/practical_vedanta_and_other_lectures/practical_vedanta_part_i.htm), delivered in London on 10 November 1896, Vivekananda explicitly rejects passivity as Vedanta's goal. His argument is that unity supplies a standard for conduct: love expresses unity, while hatred divides. Although vice and virtue differ in degree rather than kind, their distinction still matters; actual conduct must rise toward the ideal.

This presents a precise alternative to Chesterton's deduction. Shared divine being need not mean that a tyrant's actions embody the ideal as fully as a liberator's. Vivekananda is a relevant contemporary comparison, not an identified interlocutor here. His lecture does not prove that nondualism produces political liberty; it shows that the proposed logical route from oneness to moral inactivity is not compulsory.

## Sources

- [Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, volume 2: Practical Vedanta, Part I](https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/practical_vedanta_and_other_lectures/practical_vedanta_part_i.htm), Lecture dated 10 November 1896; paragraphs on the Bhagavad-Gita and inactivity; actual and ideal; differences of degree; final discussion of discrimination, love and hatred

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