Freedom of the soul

[Guest guest]

There is one idea which often militates against it. It is this. It is

all very well to say, " I am the Pure, the Blessed, " but I cannot show

it always in my life. That is true; the ideal is always very hard.

Every child that is born sees the sky overhead very far away, but is

that any reason why we should not look towards the sky? Would it mend

matters to go towards superstition? If we cannot get nectar, would it

mend matters for us to drink poison? Would it be any help for us,

because we cannot realise the truth immediately, to go into darkness

and yield to weakness and superstition?

 

I have no objection to dualism in many of its forms. I like most of

them, but I have objections to every form of teaching which

inculcates weakness. This is the one question I put to every man,

woman, or child, when they are in physical, mental, or spiritual

training. Are you strong? Do you feel strength?--for I know it is

truth alone that gives strength. I know that truth alone gives life,

and nothing but going towards reality will make us strong, and none

will reach truth until he is strong. Every system, therefore, which

weakens the mind, makes one superstitious, makes one mope, makes one

desire all sorts of wild impossibilities, mysteries, and

superstitions, I do not like, because its effect is dangerous. Such

systems never bring any good; such things create morbidity in the

mind, make it weak, so weak that in course of time it will be almost

impossible to receive truth or live up to it. Strength, therefore, is

the one thing needful. Strength is the medicine for the world's

disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must have when

tyrannised over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the

ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned; and it is the

medicine that sinners must have when tyrannised over by other

sinners; and nothing gives such strength as this idea of monism.

Nothing makes us so moral as this idea of monism. Nothing makes us

work so well at our best and highest as when all responsibility is

thrown upon ourselves. I challenge everyone of you. How will you

behave if I put a little baby in your hands? Your whole life will be

changed for the moment; whatever you may be, you must become selfless

for the time being. You will give up all your criminal ideas as soon

as responsibility is thrown upon you--your whole character will

change. So if the whole responsibility is thrown upon our own

shoulders, we shall be at our highest and best; when we have nobody

to grope towards, no devil to lay our blame upon, no Personal God to

carry our burdens, when we are alone responsible, then we shall rise

to our highest and best. I am responsible for my fate, I am the

bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil. I am the Pure

and Blessed One. We must reject all thoughts that assert the

contrary. " I have neither death nor fear, I have neither caste nor

creed, I have neither father nor mother nor brother, neither friend

nor foe, for I am Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Absolute; I am the

Blissful One, I am the Blissful One. I am not bound either by virtue

or vice, by happiness or misery. Pilgrimages and books and

ceremonials can never bind me. I have neither hunger nor thirst; the

body is not mind, nor am I subject to the superstitions and decay

that come to the body, I am Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Absolute;

I am the Blissful One, I am the Blissful One. "

 

This, says the Vedanta, is the only prayer that we should have. This

is the only way to reach the goal, to tell ourselves, and to tell

everybody else, that we are divine. And as we go on repeating this,

strength comes. He who falters at first will get stronger and

stronger, and the voice will increase in volume until the truth takes

possession of our hearts, and courses through our veins, and

permeates our bodies. Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more

and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and

then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the Sun alone

shines.

 

- Swami Vivekananda