BHAKTI OR DEVOTION

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:56 pm (PST)

 

BHAKTI OR DEVOTION - Swami Vivekananda

 

The vast majority of men are atheists. I am glad that, in modern

times, another class of atheists has come into existence in the

Western world -- I mean the materialists. They are sincere atheists.

They are better than the religious atheists, who are insincere, who

fight and talk about religion, and yet do not want it, never try to

realise it, never try to understand it. Remember the words of

Christ: " Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;

knock, and it shall be opened unto you. " These words are literally

true, not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart's

blood of one the greatest sons of God who have ever come to this

world of ours; words which came as the fruit of realisation, from a

man who had felt and realised God himself; who had spoken with God,

lived with God, a hundred times more intensely than you or I see this

building. Who wants God? That is the question. Do you think that all

this mass of people in the world want God, and cannot get Him? That

cannot be. What want is there without its object outside? Man wants

to breathe, and there is air for him to breathe. Man wants to eat,

and there is food to eat. What creates these desires? The existence

of external things. It was the light that made the eyes; it was the

sound that made the ears. So every desire in human beings has been

created by something which already existed outside. This desire for

perfection, for reaching the goal and getting beyond nature, how can

it be there, until something has created it and drilled it into the

soul of man, and makes it live there? He, therefore, in whom this

desire is awakened, will reach the goal. We want everything but God.

This is not religion that you see all around you. My lady has

furniture in her parlour, from all over the world, and now it is the

fashion to have something Japanese; so she buys a vase and puts it in

her room. Such is religion with the vast majority; they have all

sorts of things for enjoyment, and unless they add a little flavour

of religion, life is not all right, because society would criticise

them. Society expects it; so they must have some religion. This is

the present state of religion in the world.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 44 ]

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

There is only one sin. That is weakness.... The only saint is that

soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.

- Swami Vivekananda