Swami Vivekananda says to regain lost faith is to believe I am the Soul

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VEDANTA IN ITS APPLICATION TO INDIAN LIFE

Volume 3, Lectures from Colombo to Almora

 

With the Advaitist the one difference is that he admits evolution in nature and

not in the soul. Suppose there is a screen, and there is a small hole in the

screen. I am a man standing behind the screen and looking at this grand

assembly. I can see only very few faces here. Suppose the hole increases; as it

increases, more and more of this assembly is revealed to me, and in full when

the hole has become identified with the screen — there is nothing between you

and me in this case. Neither you changed nor I changed; all the change was in

the screen. You were the same from first to last; only the screen changed. This

is the Advaitist's position with regard to evolution —

evolution of nature and manifestation of the Self within.

 

Not that the Self can by any means be made to contract. It is unchangeable, the

Infinite One. It was covered, as it were, with a veil, the veil of Maya, and as

this Maya veil becomes thinner and thinner, the inborn, natural glory of the

soul comes out and becomes more manifest. This is the one great doctrine which

the world is waiting to learn from India. Whatever they may talk, however they

may try to boast, they will find out day after day that no society can stand

without admitting this. Do you not find how everything is being revolutionized?

Do you not see how it was the custom to take for

granted that everything was wicked until it proved itself good? In

education, in punishing criminals, in treating lunatics, in the treatment of

common diseases even, that was the old law.

 

What is the modern law? The modern law says, the body itself is healthy; it

cures diseases of its own nature. Medicine can at the best but help the storing

up of the best in the body. What says it of criminals? It takes for granted that

however low a criminal may be, there is still the divinity within, which does

not change, and we must treat criminals accordingly. All these things are now

changing, and reformatories and penitentiaries are established. So with

everything. Consciously or unconsciously that Indian idea of the divinity within

every one is expressing itself even in other countries. And in your books is the

explanation which other nations have to accept.

 

When we go out of our country, we find the same brother-man, with the same

strong hand to help, with the same lips to say godspeed; and sometimes they are

better than in the country in which we are born. When they come here, they find

the same brotherhood, the same cheer, the same godspeed. Our Upanishads say that

the cause of all misery is ignorance; and that is perfectly true when applied to

every state of life, either social or spiritual. It is ignorance that makes us

hate each other, it is through ignorance that we do not know and do not love

each other. As soon as we come to know each other, love comes, must come, for

are we not ones.

 

What do we want in India? If foreigners want these things, we want them twenty

times more. Because, in spite of the greatness of the Upanishads, in spite of

our boasted ancestry of sages, compared to many other races, I must tell you

that we are weak, very weak.First of all is our physical weakness. That physical

weakness is the cause of at least one-third of our miseries. We are lazy, we

cannot work; we cannot combine, we do not love each other; we are intensely

selfish, not three of us can come together without hating each other, without

being jealous of each other.

 

That is the state in which we are — hopelessly disorganised mobs, immensely

selfish, fighting each other for centuries as to whether a certain mark is to be

put on our forehead this way or that way, writing volumes and volumes upon such

momentous questions as to whether the look of a man spoils my food or not! This

we have been doing for the past few centuries. We cannot expect anything high

from a race whose whole brain energy has been occupied in such wonderfully

beautiful problems and researches! And are we not ashamed of ourselves? Ay,

sometimes we are; but though we think these things frivolous, we cannot give

them up.

 

We have lost faith. Would you believe me, we have less faith than the

Englishman and woman — a thousand times less faith! These are plain words; but I

say these, I cannot help it. Don't you see how Englishmen and women, when they

catch our ideals, become mad as it were; and although they are the ruling class,

they come to India to preach our own religion notwithstanding the jeers and

ridicule of their own countrymen? How many of you could do that? And why cannot

you do that? Do you not know it? You know more than they do; you are more wise

than is good for you, that is your difficulty! Simply because your blood is only

like water, your brain is sloughing, your

body is weak! You must change the body.

 

Physical weakness is the cause and nothing else. You have talked of reforms, of

ideals, and all these things for the past hundred years; but when it comes to

practice, you are not to be found anywhere — till you have disgusted the whole

world, and the very name of reform is a thing of ridicule! And what is the

cause? Do you not know? You know too well. The only cause is that you are weak,

weak, weak; your body is weak, your mind is weak, you have no faith in

yourselves! Centuries and centuries, a thousand years of crushing tyranny of

castes and kings and foreigners and your own people have taken out all your

strength, my brethren. Your backbone is broken, you are like downtrodden worms.

Who will give you strength? Let me tell you, strength, strength is what we want.

 

And the first step in getting strength is to uphold the Upanishads, and believe

— " I am the Soul " , " Me the sword cannot cut; nor weapons pierce; me the fire

cannot burn; me the air cannot dry; I am the Omnipotent, I am the Omniscient. " So

repeat these blessed, saving words. Do not say we are weak; we can do anything

and everything. What can we not do? Everything can be done by us; we all have

the same glorious soul, let us believe in it. Have faith, as Nachiketâ. At the

time of his father's sacrifice, faith came unto Nachiketa; ay, I wish that faith

would come to each of you; and every one of you would stand up a giant, a

world-mover with a gigantic intellect — an

infinite God in every respect. That is what I want you to become. This is the

strength that you get from the Upanishads, this is the faith that you get from

there.

 

If the fisherman thinks that he is the Spirit, he will be a better

fisherman; if the student thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better

student. If the lawyer thinks that he is the Spirit, he will be a better lawyer,

and so on, and the result will be that the castes will remain for ever. It is in

the nature of society to form itself into groups; and what will go will be these

privileges. Caste is a natural order; I can perform one duty in social life, and

you another; you can govern a country, and I can mend a pair of old shoes, but

that is no reason why you are greater than I, for can you mend my shoes? Can I

govern the country? I am clever in mending shoes, you are clever in reading

Vedas, but that is no reason why you should trample on my head. Why if one

commits murder should he be praised, and if another steals an apple why should

he be hanged? This will have to go. Caste is good. That is the only natural way

of solving life.

 

Men must form themselves into groups, and you cannot get rid of that.

Wherever you go, there will be caste. But that does not mean that there should

be these privileges. They should be knocked on the head. If you teach Vedanta to

the fisherman, he will say, I am as good a man as you; I am a fisherman, you are

a philosopher, but I have the same God in me as you have in you. And that is

what we want, no privilege for any one, equal chances for all; let every one be

taught that the divine is within, and every one will work out his own salvation.

 

Who are you to assume that you know everything? How dare you think, O

blasphemers, that you have the right over God? For don't you know that every

soul is the Soul of God? Mind your own Karma; a load of Karma is there in you to

work out. Your nation may put you upon a pedestal, your society may cheer you up

to the skies, and fools may praise you: but He sleeps not, and retribution will

be sure to follow, here or hereafter.

 

Look upon every man, woman, and every one as God. You cannot help anyone, you

can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you

have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any one of His

children, blessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are

that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as a

worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and

worship them.

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prashant Jalasutram