SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON PATRIOTISM

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:56 pm (PST)

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON PATRIOTISM

[Collected Works - Vol III pages 225-226]

 

" They talk of patriotism. I believe in patriotism, and I also have

my own ideal of patriotism. Three things are necessary for great

achievements:

 

First, feel from the heart. What is in the intellect or reason? It

goes a few steps and there it stops. But through the heart comes

inspiration.

 

Love opens the most impossible gates; love is the gate to all the

secrets in the universe. Feel, therefore, my would-be reformers, my

would-be patriots! Do you feel? Do you feel that the millions and

millions of the descendants of gods and of sages have become next-

door neighbours to brutes? Do you feel that millions have been

starving today, and millions have been starving for ages? Do you

feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark crowd? Does it

make you restless? Does it make you sleepless? Has it gone over your

blood, coursing through your veins, becoming consonanant with your

heart-beats? Has it made you almost mad? Are you seized with the one

idea of misery and ruin, and have you forgotten all about your name,

your fame, your wives, your children, your property, even your own

bodies? Have you done that? This is the first step to become a

patriot, the very first step.......

 

You may feel, then; but instead of spending your energies on frothy

talk, have you found any way out, any practical solution, some help

instead of condemnation, some sweet words to soothe their miseries,

to bring them out of this living death?

 

Yet that is not all.

 

Have you got the will to surmount mountain high obstructions?

 

If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still

dare to do what you think is right? If your wife and children are

against you, if all your money goes, your name dies, your wealth

vanishes, would you still stick to it? Would you still pursue it and

go on steadily towards your own goal? As the great King Bhartehari

says (Niti-sataka, verse 74) :

 

Nindantu nitinpunah yadi va stuvantu

Laksmih samavisatu gacchatu va yathestam;

Adyaiva va maranamastu yugantare va

Nyayyat pathat pravicalanti padam na dhirah-

 

" Let the sages blame or let them praise;

let the goddess of fortune come or let her go wherever she likes;

let death come today, or let it come after millions of years;

he indeed is the steady man who does not move one inch from the way

of truth. "

 

Have you got that steadfastness?

 

If you have these three things, each one of you will make miracles.

 

Courtesy: http://www.tamilnat ion.org/sathyam/ east/vivekananda .htm

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who

keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep

your mind young.

- Henry Ford