THE REAL NATURE OF MAN

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:14 pm (PST)

 

THE REAL NATURE OF MAN - Swami Vivekananda

 

Now, human language is the attempt to express the truth that is

within. I am fully persuaded that a baby whose language consists of

unintelligible sounds is attempting to express the highest

philosophy, only the baby has not the organs to express it nor the

means. The difference between the language of the highest

philosophers and the utterances of babies is one of degree and not

of kind. What you call the most correct, systematic, mathematical

language of the present time, and the hazy, mystical, mythological

languages of the ancients, differ only in degree. All of them have a

grand idea behind, which is, as it were, struggling to express

itself; and often behind these ancient mythologies are nuggets of

truth; and often, I am sorry to say, behind the fine, polished

phrases of the moderns is arrant trash. So, we need not throw a

thing overboard because it is clothed in mythology, because it does

not fit in with the notions of Mr. So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so of

modern times. If people should laugh at religion because most

religions declare that men must believe in mythologies taught by

such and such a prophet, they ought to laugh more at these moderns.

In modern times, if a man quotes a Moses or a Buddha or a Christ, he

is laughed at; but let him give the name of a Huxley, a Tyndall, or

a Darwin, and it is swallowed without salt. " Huxley has said it " ,

that is enough for many. We are free from superstitions indeed! That

was a religious superstition, and this is a scientific superstition;

only, in and through that superstition came life-giving ideas of

spirituality; in and through this modern superstition come lust and

greed. That superstition was worship of God, and this superstition

is worship of filthy lucre, of fame and power. That is the

difference.

 

To be continued..

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 73 ]

(Delivered in London)

 

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

What about this marvelous experience of standing alone, discarding

all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense

of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty, and of working a

whole life, joyful, free-not goaded on to work like slaves by false

human love or ambition?

- Swami Vivekananda