Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 101)

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Parts 1 to 100 were posted earlier. This is part 101. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 101

 

ii) Scriptures Only Help to Take Away the Veil Which Hides Truth from Our Eyes

Realization of religion is the only way. Each one of us will have to discover. Of what use are these books, then, these bibles of the world? They are of great use, just as maps are of a country. I have seen maps of England all my life before I came here, and they were great helps to me in forming some conception of England. Yet, when I arrived in this country, what a difference between the maps and the country itself! So is the difference between realization and the scriptures. These books are only maps, the experiences of past men and women, as a motive power to us to dare to make the same experiences and discover the same way, if not better.

This is the first principle of Vedanta - that realization is religion, and he or she who realizes is the religious person; and he or she who does not is no better than someone who says, "I do not know." - if not worse, because the other says, "I do not know" and is sincere. In this realization again, we shall be helped very much by these books, for every science has its own particular method of investigation. (30)

The Vedas cannot show you Brahman, for you are That already; they can only help to take away the veil that hides the Truth from our eyes. The first veil to vanish is ignorance; and when that is gone, sin goes; next desire ceases, selfishness ends, and all misery disappears. (31)

Can you explain Brahman, which transcends time and space, by means of questions and answers? Hence the Shastras and mantras and other such things are only relatively and not absolutely true. Nescience has verily no essence to call its own; how then can you understand it? When Brahman manifests itself, there will be no more room for such questions. (32)

When you have seen God, this is no longer a matter of speculation. There is no more Mr. So-and-So.... No more books or Vedas, or controversy or preachers, or anything. (33)

That is religion: no humbug of the world. No shilly-shallying, tall-talk, conjecture - I presume, I believe, I think. How I would like to go out of this piece of painted humbug they call the beautiful world... beyond, beyond - which can only be felt, never expressed! That is religion.... There is a God. There all the saints, prophets and incarnations meet. Beyond the babel of Bibles and Vedas, creeds and crafts, dupes and doctrines, where all is light, all love - where the miasma of this earth can never reach. (34)