The Absolute and Manifestation

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It was the great Buddha, who never cared for the dualist gods, and

who has been called an atheist and materialist, who yet was ready to

give up his body for a poor goat. That Man set in motion the highest

moral ideas any nation can have. Whenever there is a moral code, it

is a ray of light from that Man. We cannot force the great hearts of

the world into narrow limits, and keep them there, especially at this

time in the history of humanity when there is a degree of

intellectual development such as was never dreamed of even a hundred

years ago, when a wave of scientific knowledge has arisen which

nobody, even fifty years ago, would have dreamed of. By trying to

force people into narrow limits you degrade them into animals and

unthinking masses. You kill their moral life. What is now wanted is a

combination of the greatest heart with the highest intellectuality,

of infinite love with infinite knowledge. The Vedantist gives no

other attributes to God except these three--that He is Infinite

Existence, Infinite Knowledge, and Infinite Bliss, and he regards

these three as One. Existence without knowledge and love cannot be;

knowledge without love and love without knowledge cannot be. What we

want is the harmony of Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Infinite. For

that is our goal. We want harmony, not one-sided development. And it

is possible to have the intellect of a Shankara with the heart of a

Buddha. I hope we shall all struggle to attain to that blessed

combination.

 

- Swami Vivekananda