SWAMI SRI VEERABRAHMENDRA

A Monograph on Pothuluru Veerabrahmendra Swamy

A Religious Rebel and A Social Reformer

Veerabrahmam and Vemana are, by any measure, the most eloquent religious rebels and social reformers who declared a silent war against the superstitious beliefs and meaningless customs. While Veerabrahmam pioneered the movement, Vemana pursued it to a greater extent. They may or may not have met one another in their rebellious voyage. But the utimate goal was the same. The path, they went along, was also one and the same. Both of them were poets of the people. They tried to educate the common man through a language which was quite natural to him.

The conditions that led them TO rebel against the age-honoured religious faiths were quite evident.

The basic principles of any religion are necessarily noble and indispensably pious. But the precept and practice, at times, do not go hand in hand, be it Hinduism or Buddhism, Christianity or Mohommadanism. While practicing the precept, they sometimes are carried away by the superstitious belief which normally does not allow the rational mind to think properly. Customs and habits are the lovely synonyms for the external expression of the so called superstitious beliefs which pay a great havoc in the life of the people. Social disorder and spiritual unrest are the outcome of these ugly beliefs. No religion on earth is totally free from the malady of these beliefs. Revolutionary Saints rebel against them and righteous indignation is the root cause for a reasonable rebellion against the irrational superstitious beliefs.

Every religion has its own fixed intellectual beliefs which mark it off from the other. The intellect is seldom subordinated to intuition, while dogma is submissive to experience. Religion normally rests on faith. Faith is of two kinds. One is mechanical and mainly depends on the authority of books; the other is quite natural and extends its roots into reality and experience.

After all, what is faith? It is neither an opinion nor a heap of ideas, however true they are Strictly speaking it must be a vision of the soul, by which spiritual things are apprehended. This is the real faith which saves the seer himself, as also the external world which he sees with his eyes, wet with benevolence.