Swami Vivekananda says women must grow in the footprints of Sita

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THE SAGES OF INDIA

Volume 3, Lectures from Colombo to Almora

 

This mind is continually changing, always in a state of flux; it is finite,

it is broken into pieces. How can nature tell of the Infinite, the

Unchangeable, the Unbroken, the Indivisible, the Eternal? It never can. And

whenever mankind has striven to get an answer from dull dead matter, history

shows how disastrous the results have been. How comes, then, the knowledge

which the Vedas declare? It comes through being a Rishi. This knowledge is

not in the senses; but are the senses the be-all and the end-all of the

human being? Who dare say that the senses are the all-in-all of man? Even in

our lives, in the life of every one of us here, there come moments of

calmness, perhaps, when we see before us the death of one we loved, when

some shock comes to us, or when extreme blessedness comes to us. Many other

occasions there are when the mind, as it were, becomes calm, feels for the

moment its real nature; and a glimpse of the Infinite beyond, where words

cannot reach nor the mind go, is revealed to us.

 

This happens in ordinary life, but it has to be heightened, practiced,

perfected. Men found out ages ago that the soul is not bound or limited by

the senses, no, not even by consciousness. We have to understand that this

consciousness is only the name of one link in the infinite chain. Being is

not identical with consciousness, but consciousness is only one part of

Being. Beyond consciousness is where the bold search lies. Consciousness is

bound by the senses. Beyond that, beyond the senses, men must go in order to

arrive at truths of the spiritual world, and there are even now persons who

succeed in going beyond the bounds of the senses. These are called Rishis,

because they come face to face with spiritual truths.

 

Any attempt to modernise our women, if it tries to take our women away from

that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see every day. The women

of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the

only way.

 

A great landmark in the history of religion is here, the ideal of love for

love's sake, work for work's sake, duty for duty's sake, and it for the

first time fell from the lips of the greatest of Incarnations, Krishna, and

for the first time in the history of humanity, upon the soil of India. The

religions of fear and of temptations were gone for ever, and in spite of the

fear of hell and temptation of enjoyment in heaven, came the grandest of

ideals, love for love's sake, duty for duty's sake, work for work's sake.

 

There was a book written a year or two ago by a Russian gentleman, who

claimed to have found out a very curious life of Jesus Christ, and in one

part of the book he says that Christ went to the temple of Jagannath to

study with the Brahmins, but became disgusted with their exclusiveness and

their idols, and so he went to the Lamas of Tibet instead, became perfect,

and went home.

 

To any man who knows anything about Indian history, that very statement

proves that the whole thing was a fraud, because the temple of Jagannath is

an old Buddhistic temple. We took this and others over and re-Hinduised

them. We shall have to do many things like that yet. That is Jagannath, and

there was not one Brahmin there then, and yet we are told that Jesus Christ

came to study with the Brahmins there. So says our great Russian

archaeologist.

 

This one great Northern sage, Chaitanya, represented the mad love of the

Gopis. Himself a Brahmin, born of one of the most rationalistic families of

the day, himself a professor of logic fighting and gaining a word-victory —

for, this he had learnt from his childhood as the highest ideal of life and

yet through the mercy of some sage the whole life of that man became

changed; he gave up his fight, his quarrels, his professorship of logic and

became one of the greatest teachers of Bhakti the world has ever known — mad

Chaitanya.

 

His Bhakti rolled over the whole land of Bengal, bringing solace to every

one. His love knew no bounds. The saint or the sinner, the Hindu or the

Mohammedan, the pure or the impure, the prostitute, the streetwalker — all

had a share in his love, all had a share in his mercy: and even to the

present day, although greatly degenerated, as everything does become in

time, his sect is the refuge of the poor, of the downtrodden, of the

outcast, of the weak, of those who have been rejected by all society. But at

the same time I must remark for truth's sake that we find this: In the

philosophic sects we find wonderful liberalisms.

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prashant Jalasutram