THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Wed Jul 18, 2007 7:58 pm (PST)

 

THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION - Swami Vivekananda

 

Apart from the consideration of the question how far these facts

claimed by religions are true, we find one characteristic common to

them all. They are all abstractions as contrasted with the concrete

discoveries of physics, for instance; and in all the highly organised

religions they take the purest form of Unit Abstraction, either in

the form of an Abstracted Presence, as an Omnipresent Being, as an

Abstract Personality called God, as a Moral Law, or in the form of an

Abstract Essence underlying every existence. In modern times, too,

the attempts made to preach religions without appealing to the

supersensuous state of mind have had to take up the old abstractions

of the Ancients and give different names to them as " Moral Law " ,

the " Ideal Unity " , and so forth, thus showing that these abstractions

are not in the senses. None of us have yet seen an " Ideal Human

Being " , and yet we are told to believe in it. None of us have yet

seen an ideally perfect man, and yet without that ideal we cannot

progress. Thus, this one fact stands out from all these different

religions, that there is an Ideal Unit Abstraction, which is put

before us, either in the form of a Person or an Impersonal Being, or

a Law, or a Presence, or an Essence. We are always struggling to

raise ourselves up to that ideal. Every human being, whosoever and

wheresoever he may be, has an ideal of infinite power. Every human

being has an ideal of infinite pleasure. Most of the works that we

find around us, the activities displayed everywhere, are due to the

struggle for this infinite power or this infinite pleasure. But a few

quickly discover that although they are struggling for infinite

power, it is not through the senses that it can be reached. They find

out very soon that that infinite pleasure is not to be got through

the senses, or, in other words, the senses are too limited, and the

body is too limited, to express the Infinite. To manifest the

Infinite through the finite is impossible, and sooner or later, man

learns to give up the attempt to express the Infinite through the

finite. This giving up, this renunciation of the attempt, is the

background of ethics. Renunciation is the very basis upon which

ethics stands. There never was an ethical code preached which had not

renunciation for its basis.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 61 ]

(Delivered in London)

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of

knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up

to it.

- Swami Vivekananda