HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY

[Guest guest]

Dear Lovers of Divine Postings in TBP,

 

Love and Love alone.....

 

Here are a few hints on Practical Spirituality given by Swami

Vivekananda, received from a different source. Pleae read and

implement.

 

Love and Love alone....

 

P. Gopi Krishna

 

===

 

 

HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY

Posted by: " Uttishthata Moderator " uttishthata

uttishthata

Wed May 9, 2007 7:53 pm (PST)

HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY - Swami Vivekananda

 

(Delivered at the Home of Truth, Los Angeles, California)

 

This morning I shall try to present to you some ideas about breathing

and other exercises. We have been discussing theories so long that

now it will be well to have a little of the practical. A great many

books have been written in India upon this subject. Just as your

people are practical in many things, so it seems our people are

practical in this line. Five persons in this country will join their

heads together and say, " We will have a joint-stock company " , and in

five hours it is done; in India they could not do it in fifty years;

they are so unpractical in matters like this. But, mark you, if a man

starts a system of philosophy, however wild its theory may be, it

will have followers. For instance, a sect is started to teach that if

a man stands on one leg for twelve years, day and night, he will get

salvation -- there will be hundreds ready to stand on one leg. All

the suffering will be quietly borne. There are people who keep their

arms upraised for years to gain religious merit. I have seen hundreds

of them. And, mind you, they are not always ignorant fools, but are

men who will astonish you with the depth and breadth of their

intellect. So, you see, the word practical is also relative.

 

We are always making this mistake in judging others; we are always

inclined to think that our little mental universe is all that is; our

ethics, our morality, our sense of duty, our sense of utility, are

the only things that are worth having. The other day when I was going

to Europe, I was passing through Marseilles, where a bull-fight was

being held. All the Englishmen in the steamer were mad with

excitement, abusing and criticising the whole thing as cruel. When I

reached England, I heard of a party of prize-fighters who had been to

Paris, and were kicked out unceremoniously by the French, who thought

prize-fighting very brutal. When I hear these things in various

countries, I begin to understand the marvellous saying of

Christ: " Judge not that ye be not judged. " The more we learn, the

more we find out how ignorant we are, how multiform and multi-sided

is this mind of man. When I was a boy, I used to criticise the

ascetic practices of my countrymen; great preachers in our own land

have criticised them; the greatest man that was ever born, Buddha

himself, criticised them. But all the same, as I am growing older, I

feel that I have no right to judge. Sometimes I wish that, in spite

of all their incongruities, I had one fragment of their power to do

and to suffer. Often I think that my judgment and my criticism do not

proceed from any dislike of torture, but from sheer cowardice --

because I cannot do it -- I dare not do it.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 24 ]