The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 7/Inspired Talks/Wednesday, July 3
(RECORDED BY MISS S. E. WALDO, A DISCIPLE)
WEDNESDAY, July 3, 1895.
Generally speaking, human religion begins with fear. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." But later comes the higher idea. "Perfect love casteth out fear." Traces of fear will remain with us until we get knowledge, know what God is. Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry. Denunciation is never the highest. David's hands were smeared with blood; he could not build the temple. (Bible, Samuel, Chap. XVII — end.)
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and
virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns
ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the
macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox,
one drop of water can balance the universe. We cannot see outside what we
are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the
miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to
imagine trouble in the huge one.
Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love;
criticising can never do any good, it has been tried for thousand of years.
Condemnation accomplishes nothing.
A real Vedantist must sympathise with all. Monism, or absolute oneness is the very soul of Vedanta. Dualists naturally tend to become intolerant, to think theirs as the only way. The Vaishnavas in India, who are dualists, are a most intolerant sect. Among the Shaivas, another dualistic sect, the story is told of a devotee by the name of Ghantâkarna or the Bell-eared, who was so devout a worshipper of Shiva that he did not wish even to hear the name of any other deity; so he wore two bells tied to his ears in order to drown the sound of any voice uttering other Divine names. On account of his intense devotion to Shiva, the latter wanted to teach him that there was no difference between Shiva and Vishnu, so He appeared before him as half Vishnu and half Shiva. At that moment the devotee was waving incense before Him, but so great was the bigotry of Ghantakarna that when he saw the fragrance of the incense entering the nostril of Vishnu, he thrust his finger into it to prevent the god from enjoying the sweet smell. . . .
The meat-eating animal, like the lion, gives one blow and subsides, but the patient bullock goes on all day, eating and sleeping as it walks. The "live Yankee" cannot compete with the rice-eating Chinese coolie. While military power dominates, meat-eating still prevail; but with the advance of science, fighting will grow less, and then the vegetarians will come in.
* * *
We divide ourselves into two to love God, myself loving my Self. God has
created me and I have created God. We create God in our image; it is we who
create Him to be our master, it is not God who makes us His servants. When
we know that we are one with God, that we and He are friends, then come
equality and freedom. So long as you hold yourself separated by a hair's
breadth from this Eternal One, fear cannot go.
Never ask that foolish question, what good will it do to the world? Let the world go. Love and ask nothing; love and look for nothing further. Love and forget all the "isms". Drink the cup of love and become mad. Say "Thine, O Thine for ever O Lord!" and plunge in, forgetting all else. The very idea of God is love. Seeing a cat loving her kittens stand and pray. God has become manifest there; literally believe this. Repeat "I am Thine, I am Thine", for we can see God everywhere. Do not seek for Him, just see Him.
"May the Lord ever keep you alive, Light of the world, Soul of the
universe!" . . .
The Absolute cannot be worshipped, so we must worship a manifestation, such
a one as has our nature. Jesus had our nature; he became the Christ; so can
we, and so must we. Christ and Buddha were the names of a state to be
attained; Jesus and Gautama were the persons to manifest it. "Mother" is the
first and highest manifestation, next the Christs and Buddhas. We make our
own environment, and we strike the fetters off. The Atman is the fearless.
When we pray to a God outside, it is good, only we do not know what we do.
When we know the Self, we understand. The highest expression of love is
unification.
"There was a time when I was a woman and he was a man. Still love grew until there was neither he nor I; Only I remember faintly there was a time when there were two. But love came between and made them one."
— Persian Sufi Poem
Knowledge exists eternally and is co-existent with God. The man who
discovers a spiritual law is inspired, and what he brings is revelation; but
revelation too is eternal, not to be crystallised as final and then blindly
followed. The Hindus have been criticised so many years by their conquerors
that they (the Hindus) dare to criticise their religion themselves, and this
makes them free. Their foreign rulers struck off their fetters without
knowing it. The most religious people on earth, the Hindus have actually no
sense of blasphemy; to speak of holy things in any way is to them in itself
a sanctification. Nor have they any artificial respect for prophets or
books, or for hypocritical piety.
The Church tries to fit Christ into it, not the Church into Christ; so only
those writings were preserved that suited the purpose in hand. Thus the
books are not to be depended upon and book-worship is the worst kind of
idolatry to bind our feet. All has to conform to the book — science,
religion, philosophy; it is the most horrible tyranny, this tyranny of the
Protestant Bible. Every man in Christian countries has a huge cathedral on
his head and on top of that a book, and yet man lives and grows! Does not
this prove that man is God?
Man is the highest being that exists, and this is the greatest world. We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God. When we rise and go beyond and find something higher, we have to jump out of the mind, out of body and the imagination and leave this world; when we rise to be the Absolute, we are no longer in this world. Man is the apex of the only world we can ever know. All we know of animals is only by analogy, we judge them by what we do and feel ourselves.
The sum total of knowledge is ever the same, only sometimes it is more
manifested and sometimes less. The only source of it is within, and there
only is it found.
* * *
All poetry, painting, and music is feeling expressed through words, through
colour, through sound. . . .
Blessed are those upon whom their sins are quickly visited, their account is
the sooner balanced! Woe to those whose punishment is deferred, it is the
greater!
Those who have attained sameness are said to be living in God. All hatred is
killing the "Self by the self", therefore love is the law of life. To rise
to this is to be perfect; but the more perfect we are, less work (so-called)
can we do. The Sâttvika see and know that all is mere child's play and do
not trouble themselves about anything.
It is easy to strike a blow, but tremendously hard to stay the hand, stand
still, and say, "In Thee, O Lord, I take refuge", and then wait for Him to
act.