HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY

[Guest guest]

HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY

Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Thu May 31, 2007 8:01 pm (PST)

HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY - Swami Vivekananda

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

 

The great error in all ethical systems, without exception, has been

the failure of teaching the means by which man could refrain from

doing evil. All the systems of ethics teach, " Do not steal! " Very

good; but why does a man steal? Because all stealing, robbing, and

other evil actions, as a rule, have become automatic. The systematic

robber, thief, liar, unjust man and woman, are all these in spite of

themselves! It is really a tremendous psychological problem. We

should look upon man in the most charitable light. It is not so easy

to be good. What are you but mere machines until you are free? Should

you be proud because you are good? Certainly not. You are good

because you cannot help it. Another is bad because he cannot help it.

If you were in his position, who knows what you would have been. The

woman in the street, or the thief in the jail, is the Christ that is

being sacrificed that you may be a good man. Such is the law of

balance. All the thieves and the murderers, all the unjust, the

weakest, the wickedest, the devils, they are all my Christ! I owe a

worship to the God Christ and to the demon Christ! That is my

doctrine, I cannot help it. My salutation goes to the feet of the

good, the saintly, and to the feet of the wicked and the devilish!

They are all my teachers, all are my spiritual fathers, all are my

Saviours. I may bless one and yet benefit by his failings; I may

bless another and benefit by his good deeds. This is as true as that

I stand here. I have to sneer at the woman walking in the street,

because society wants it! She, my Saviour, she, whose street-walking

is the cause of the chastity of other women! Think of that. Think,

men and women, of this question in your mind. It is a truth -- a

bare, bold truth! As I see more of the world, see more of the men and

women, this conviction grows stronger. Whom shall I blame? Whom shall

I praise? Both sides of the shield must be seen.

 

The task before us is vast; and first and foremost, we must seek to

control the vast mass of sunken thoughts which have become automatic

with us. The evil deed is, no doubt, on the conscious plane; but the

cause which produced the evil deed was far beyond in the realms of

the unconscious, unseen, and therefore more potent.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 33 ]

 

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us

calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary

fretting and fuming.

- Swami Vivekananda