THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Wed Aug 8, 2007 6:37 pm (PST)

 

THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION - Swami Vivekananda

 

Thus, apart from the solid facts and truths that we may learn from

religion, apart from the comforts that we may gain from it, religion,

as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise

that the human mind can have. This pursuit of the Infinite, this

struggle to grasp the Infinite, this effort to get beyond the

limitations of the senses -- out of matter, as it were -- and to

evolve the spiritual man -- this striving day and night to make the

Infinite one with our being -- this struggle itself is the grandest

and most glorious that man can make. Some persons find the greatest

pleasure in eating. We have no right to say that they should not.

Others find the greatest pleasure in possessing certain things. We

have no right to say that they should not. But they also have no

right to say " no " to the man who finds his highest pleasure in

spiritual thought. The lower the organisation, the greater the

pleasure in the senses. Very few men can eat a meal with the same

gusto as a dog or a wolf. But all the pleasures of the dog or the

wolf have gone, as it were into the senses. The lower types of

humanity in all nations find pleasure in the senses, while the

cultured and the educated find it in thought, in philosophy, in arts

and sciences. Spirituality is a still higher plane. The subject being

infinite, that plane is the highest, and the pleasure there is the

highest for those who can appreciate it. So, even on the utilitarian

ground that man is to seek for pleasure, he should cultivate

religious thought, for it is the highest pleasure that exists. Thus

religion, as a study, seems to me to be absolutely necessary.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 65 ]

(Delivered in London)

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

God is not to be reached by the weak. Never be weak. You have

infinite strength within you. How else will you conquer anything? How

else will you come to God?

- Swami Vivekananda