THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:08 pm (PST)

 

THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION - Swami Vivekananda

 

The religious ideals of the future must embrace all that exists in

the world and is good and great, and, at the same time, have infinite

scope for future development. All that was good in the past must be

preserved; and the doors must be kept open for future additions to

the already existing store. Religions must also be inclusive, and not

look down with contempt upon one another, because their particular

ideals of God are different. In my life I have seen a great many

spiritual men, a great many sensible persons, who did not believe in

God at all, that is to say, not in our sense of the word. Perhaps

they understood God better than we can ever do. The Personal idea of

God or the Impersonal, the Infinite, Moral Law, or the Ideal Man --

these all have to come under the definition of religion. And when

religions have become thus broadened, their power for good will have

increased a hundredfold. Religions, having tremendous power in them,

have often done more injury to the world than good, simply on account

of their narrowness and limitations.

 

Even at the present time we find many sects and societies, with

almost the same ideas, fighting each other, because one does not want

to set forth those ideas in precisely the same way as another.

Therefore, religions will have to broaden. Religious ideas will have

to become universal, vast, and infinite; and then alone we shall have

the fullest play of religion, for the power of religion has only just

begun to manifest in the world. It is sometimes said that religions

are dying out, that spiritual ideas are dying out of the world. To me

it seems that they have just begun to grow. The power of religion,

broadened and purified, is going to penetrate every part of human

life. So long as religion was in the hands of a chosen few or of a

body of priests, it was in temples, churches, books, dogmas,

ceremonials, forms, and rituals. But when we come to the real,

spiritual, universal concept, then, and then alone, religion will

become real and living; it will come into our very nature, live in

our every movement, penetrate every pore of our society, and be

infinitely more a power for good than it has ever been before.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 67 ]

(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