The Power of Love

is infinitely of greater potency than the power of hatred.

Back in 2010, when I was studying for my MA in Social Anthropology of Development at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, I have a vague memory of being handed (or coming across) a stack of the following bookmarks*:

*Said bookmark.

Somehow, they had found their way into my life, and I’d often see some of them pop out from a random corner of my room, appear from under some essays I’d printed, or just live on my desk in my pencil holder as a reminder for something I also strongly believed in: “The power of love is infinitely of greater potency than the power of hatred.” I kept some of them in my backpack, and occasionally left some of them in library books or on cafe tables in the hope that someone would come across them - and that the message would brighten up their day as much as it had mine whenever I saw it.

Now, you may ask “Who is that in the image?” Well, funny as it may seem - or bizarre almost - I didn’t know, and I didn’t actually choose to research it - as I was mainly more concerned with the message itself…until now.

The person in the image is in fact Swami Vivekananda, “an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna who helped introduce Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world.”

As I started to research Swami Vivekananda, I realised he had played an incredibly important role in spreading the message of tolerance of other beliefs and acceptance of diverse religions across the globe. His speech during the Parliament of World's Religions held in Chicago in 1893 could even be considered a turning point for how certain Americans viewed religions and “The East”.

I truly urge anyone to listen to this speech - which is available in full below (for those who may prefer to read it, here’s a link to the transcript). It’s shocking how relevant some of the messages discussed below actually still are (in this day and age!) but we have definitely not reached the level of tolerance that he expressed in his speech—in fact we are so very far from it.

Here’s a small expert from it:

““…if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time…It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding humanity to realise its own true, divine nature.””

I do not think it is a coincidence that this bookmark - and this message - found its way into my life; and continues to do so. It does also always tend to appear in moments of despair (thanks by the way to whoever actually printed these!). I now have it hanging in the entrance of my home.

As someone who calls herself a “third culture kid” who has grown up in a multi-cultural, multi-religious house-hold (and in international environments), I have always found it so utterly saddening that so much blood has been spilt in the name of religion. It sickens me to see religion being used for the sake of obtaining power. Power that is unauthentic; power that is meaningless in a mortal world. Power that thrives by taking, by oppressing.

At the end of the day, it is the things we leave behind that we take with us when we leave this world - why leave so much suffering?

This week has been a tough one, and it has been hard to convince myself that this message holds true. But…I think it does.

I truly do believe that if we all actively continue to choose love over hatred and fear - and reflect this in our day to day lives - there is a lot more we can achieve than we may even think we are capable of. I think.

I hope.