Are you a Jnani or a Bhakta ?

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Salutations to Thakur, Guru, and Ma! Swami Vivekananda--"We are the Infinite

Being of the universe and have become materialised into these little beings, men

and women, depending on the sweet word of one man, or the angry word of another,

and so forth. What a terrible dependence, what a terrible slavery ! If you pinch

my body, I feel pain. If one says a kind word, I begin to rejoice. See my

condition--slave of the body, slave of the mind, slave of the world, slave of a

good word, slave of a bad word, slave of passion, slave of happiness, slave of

life, slave of death, slave of everything ! This slavery has to be broken. How?

Think always : 'I am Brahman.' So what is the meditation of the Jnani ? He

wants to rise above every idea of body or mind, to drive away the idea that he

is the body. Why make the body nice ? To enjoy the illusion once more ? To

continue the slavery ? Let it go. 'I am not the body.' That is the way of the

Jnani. The Bhakta says, 'The Lord has given me this body that I may safely

cross the ocean of life, and I must cherish it until the journey is

accomplished. The Yogi say, 'I must be careful of the body, so that I may go

on steadily and finally attain liberation."

(III. 25, 27-28) Satchitananda Kathy Swami Chetanananda of the St. Louis

Vedanta Society compiled and edited Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda into

this book,MEDITATION and Its Methods.