Freedom of the soul

[Guest guest]

But I do not believe at all that monistic ideas preached to the world

would produce immorality and weakness. On the contrary, I have reason

to believe that it is the only remedy there is. If this be the truth,

why let people drink ditch water when the stream of life is flowing

by? If this be the truth, that they are all pure, why not at this

moment teach it to the whole world? Why not teach it with the voice

of thunder to every man that is born, to saints and sinners, men,

women, and children, to the man on the throne and to the man sweeping

the streets?

 

It appears now a very big and a very great undertaking; to many it

appears very startling, but that is because of superstition, nothing

else. By eating all sorts of bad and indigestible food, or by

starving ourselves, we are incompetent to eat a good meal. We have

listened to words of weakness from our childhood. You hear people say

that they do not believe in ghosts, but at the same time, there are

very few who do not get a little creepy sensation in the dark. It is

simply superstition. So with all religious superstitions. There are

people in this country who, if I told them there was no such being as

the devil, will think all religion is gone. Many people have said to

me, how can there be religion without a devil? How can there be

religion without someone to direct us? How can we live without being

ruled by somebody? We like to be so treated, because we have become

used to it. We are not happy until we feel we have been reprimanded

by somebody every day. The same superstition! But however terrible it

may seem now, the time will come when we shall look back, each one of

us, and smile at every one of those superstitions which covered the

pure and eternal soul, and repeat with gladness, with truth, and with

strength, I am free, and was free, and always will be free. This

monistic idea will come out of Vedanta, and it is the one idea that

deserves to live. The scriptures may perish tomorrow. Whether this

idea first flashed in the brains of Hebrews or of people living in

the Arctic regions, nobody cares. For this is the truth and truth is

eternal; and truth itself teaches that it is not the special property

of any individual or nation. Men, animals, and gods are all common

recipients of this one truth. Let them all receive it. Why make life

miserable? Why let people fall into all sorts of superstitions? I

will give ten thousand lives, if twenty of them will give up their

superstition. Not only in this country, but in the land of its very

birth, if you tell people this truth, they are frightened. They

say, " This idea is for Sannyasins who give up the world and live in

the forests; for them it is all right. But for us poor householders,

we must all have some sort of fear, we must have ceremonies, " and so

on.

 

Dualistic ideas have ruled the world long enough, and this is the

result. Why not make a new experiment? It may take ages for all minds

to receive monism, but why not begin now? If we have told it to

twenty persons in our lives, we have done a great work.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued