BHAKTI OR DEVOTION

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BHAKTI OR DEVOTION

Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:09 pm (PST)

 

BHAKTI OR DEVOTION - Swami Vivekananda

Holy Symbols

 

If, therefore, any one says that symbols, rituals, and forms are to

be kept for ever, he is wrong; but if he says, that these symbols and

rituals are a help to the growth of the soul, in its low and

undeveloped state, he is right. But, you must not mistake this

development of the soul as meaning anything intellectual. A man can

be of gigantic intellect, yet spiritually he may be a baby. You can

verify it this minute. All of you have been taught to believe in an

Omnipresent God. Try to think of it. How few of you can have any idea

of what omnipresence means! If you struggle hard, you will get

something like the idea of the ocean, or of the sky, or of a vast

stretch of green earth, or of a desert. All these are material

images, and so long as you cannot conceive of the abstract as

abstract, of the ideal as the ideal, you will have to resort to these

forms, these material images. It does not make much difference

whether these images are inside or outside the mind. We are all born

idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man.

Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest

are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with

its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol

we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater. We

are spirit, spirit that has no form or shape, spirit that is

infinite, and not matter. Therefore, anyone who cannot grasp the

abstract, who cannot think of himself as he is, except in and through

matter, as the body, is an idolater. And yet how people fight among

themselves, calling one another idolaters! In other words, each says,

his idol is right, and the others' are wrong.

 

Therefore, we should get rid of these childish notions. We should get

beyond the prattle of men who think that religion is merely a mass of

frothy words, that it is only a system of doctrines; to whom religion

is only a little intellectual assent or dissent; to whom religion is

believing in certain words which their own priests tell them; to whom

religion is something which their forefathers believed; to whom

religion is a certain form of ideas and superstitions to which they

cling because they are their national superstitions. We should get

beyond all these and look at humanity as one vast organism, slowly

coming towards light -- a wonderful plant, slowly unfolding itself to

that wonderful truth which is called God -- and the first gyrations,

the first motions, towards this are always through matter and through

ritual.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 40 ]

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected

by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.

- Swami Vivekananda