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Written by Swami Vivekananda |
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To the Bhakta these dry details are necessary only to
strengthen his will; beyond that they are of no use to
him. For he is treading on a path which is fitted very
soon to lead him beyond the hazy and turbulent
regions of reason, to lead him to the realm of
realisation. He, soon, through the mercy of the Lord,
reaches a plane where pedantic and powerless reason
is left far behind, and the mere intellectual groping
through the dark gives place to the daylight of direct
perception. He no more reasons and believes, he
almost perceives. He no more argues, he senses. And is
not this seeing God, and feeling God, and enjoying
God higher than everything else? Nay, Bhaktas have
not been wanting who have maintained that it is
higher than even Moksha — liberation. And is it not
also the highest utility? There are people — and a
good many of them too — in the world who are
convinced that only that is of use and utility which
brings to man creature–comforts. Even religion, God,
eternity, soul, none of these is of any use to them, as
they do not bring them money or physical comfort. To
such, all those things which do not go to gratify the
senses and appease the appetites are of no utility. In
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every mind, utility, however, is conditioned by its own
peculiar wants. To men, therefore, who never rise
higher than eating, drinking, begetting progeny, and
dying, the only gain is in sense enjoyments; and they
must wait and go through many more births and
reincarnations to learn to feel even the faintest
necessity for anything higher. But those to whom the
eternal interests of the soul are of much higher value
than the fleeting interests of this mundane life, to
whom the gratification of the senses is but like the
thoughtless play of the baby, to them God and the
love of God form the highest and the only utility of
human existence. Thank God there are some such still
living in this world of too much worldliness.
Bhakti–Yoga, as we have said, is divided into the
Gauni or the preparatory, and the Par? or the supreme
forms. We shall find, as we go on, how in the
preparatory stage we unavoidably stand in need of
many concrete helps to enable us to get on; and indeed
the mythological and symbological parts of all religions
are natural growths which early environ the aspiring
soul and help it Godward. It is also a significant fact
that spiritual giants have been produced only in those
systems of religion where there is an exuberant growth
of rich mythology and ritualism. The dry fanatical
forms of religion which attempt to eradicate all that is
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poetical, all that is beautiful and sublime, all that gives
a firm grasp to the infant mind tottering in its
Godward way — the forms which attempt to break
down the very ridge–poles of the spiritual roof, and in
their ignorant and superstitious conceptions of truth
try to drive away all that is life–giving, all that
furnishes the formative material to the spiritual plant
growing in the human soul — such forms of religion
too soon find that all that is left to them is but an
empty shell, a contentless frame of words and
sophistry with perhaps a little flavour of a kind of
social scavengering or the so–called spirit of reform.
The vast mass of those whose religion is like this,
are conscious or unconscious materialists — the end
and aim of their lives here and hereafter being
enjoyment, which indeed is to them the alpha and the
omega of human life, and which is their Isht?purta;
work like street–cleaning and scavengering, intended
for the material comfort of man is, according to them,
the be–all and end–all of human existence; and the
sooner the followers of this curious mixture of
ignorance and fanaticism come out in their true
colours and join, as they well deserve to do, the ranks
of atheists and materialists, the better will it be for the
world. One ounce of the practice of righteousness and
of spiritual Self–realisation outweighs tons and tons of
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frothy talk and nonsensical sentiments. Show us one,
but one gigantic spiritual genius growing out of all this
dry dust of ignorance and fanaticism; and if you
cannot, close your mouths, open the windows of your
hearts to the clear light of truth, and sit like children at
the feet of those who know what they are talking
about — the sages of India. Let us then listen
attentively to what they say. |
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