God in Everything

[Guest guest]

We have seen how the greater portion of our life must of necessity be

filled with evils, however we may resist, and that this mass of evil

is practically almost infinite for us. We have been struggling to

remedy this since the beginning of time, yet everything remains very

much the same. The more we discover remedies, the more we find

ourselves beset by subtler evils. We have also seen that all

religions propose a God, as the one way of escaping these

difficulties. All religions tell us that if you take the world as it

is, as the most practical people would advise us to do in this age,

then nothing would be left to us but evil. They further assert that

there is something beyond this world. This life in the five senses,

life in the material world, is not all; it is only a small portion,

and merely superficial. Behind and beyond is the Infinite in which

there is no more evil. Some people call it God, some Allah, some

Jehovah, Jove, and so on. The Vedantin calls It Brahman.

 

The first impression we get of the advice given by religions is that

we had better terminate our existence. To the question how to cure

the evils of life, the answer apparently is, to give up life. It

reminds one of the old story: A mosquito settled on the head of a

man, and a friend, wishing to kill the mosquito, gave it such a blow

that he killed both man and mosquito. The remedy of evil seems to

suggest a similar course of action. Life is full of ills, the world

is full of evils; that is a fact no one who is old enough to know the

world can deny.

 

But what is remedy proposed by all the religions? That this world is

nothing. Beyond this world is something which is very real. Here

comes the difficulty. The remedy seems to destroy everything. How can

that be a remedy? Is there no way out then? The Vedanta says that

what all the religions advance is perfectly true, but it should be

properly understood. Often it is misunderstood, because the religions

are not very clear in their meaning. What we really want is head and

heart combined. The heart is great indeed; it is through the heart

that come the great inspirations of life. I would a hundred times

rather have a little heart and no brain, than be all brains and no

heart. Life is possible, progress is possible for him who has heart,

but he who has no heart and only brains dies of dryness.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued