Vydūnas: litewska wersja neowedantyzmu

ENThe famous Lithuanian thinker Vydunas (1868-1953), influenced by the ancient India philosophy, elaborated the original theory of humanistic culture, by means of which he tried to provide more spirituality to the Lithuanian culture and assist this culture in its integration to the Worlds culture. His theoretical and practical activity' was incited by the necessity to resist the Lithuanian population denationalization policy carried out by the German Empire in the Eastern Prussia. As the only effective way of resistance Vydunas proposed the moral perfecting of the Lithuanians, the education of their internal spiritual capacity7 to resist any kind of oppresive violence. He founded this proposition on the ancient Vedanta philosophy. In 19—20th century7 the main ideas of that philosophy were employed by the leaders of the National Liberation Movement of India - Ramakrishna, D. and R. Tagore, S. Vivekananda, M. Ghandi, R. Roy, S. Dayananda, B. Tilak, Shri Aurobindo and others. Adjusting the ancient ideas of Vedanta to the demands of the time the had created the new version of Vedanta - Neo-Vedanta. Following their example Vydunas adjusted ideas of Vedanta to the actual demands of Lithuanian population of Eastern Prussia and created the original philosophy which is very close to the Neo-Vedanta and therefore it can be regarded as its Lithuanian version. Keywords: Vydunas, Vedanta, Neo-Vedanta, Neo-Hinduism, man, nation, being, religion, culture.