Swami Vivekananda says indians destroy evil by suffering

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THE RAMAYANA (Delivered at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California,

January 31, 1900)

 

Volume 4, Lectures and Discourses

 

Rama and Sita are the ideals of the Indian nation. All children, especially

girls, worship Sita. The height of a woman's ambition is to be like Sita, the

pure, the devoted, the all-suffering! When you study these characters, you can

at once find out how different is the ideal in India from that of the West. For

the race, Sita stands as the ideal of suffering.

 

The West says, " Do! Show your power by doing. " India says, " Show your power by

suffering. " The West has solved the problem of how much a man can have: India

has solved the problem of how little a man can have. The two extremes, you see.

Sita is typical of India — the idealised India. The question is not whether she

ever lived, whether the story is history or not, we know that the ideal is

there. There is no other Paurânika story that has so permeated the whole nation,

so entered into its very life, and has so tingled in every drop of blood of the

race, as this ideal of Sita.

 

Sita is the name in India for everything that is good, pure and holy —

everything that in woman we call womanly. If a priest has to bless a woman he

says, " Be Sita! " If he blesses a child, he says " Be Sita! " They are all children

of Sita, and are struggling to be Sita, the patient, the all-suffering, the

ever-faithful, the ever-pure wife. Through all this suffering she experiences,

there is not one harsh word against Rama. She takes it as her own duty, and

performs her own part in it. Think of the terrible injustice of her being exiled

to the forest! But Sita knows no bitterness. That is, again, the Indian ideal.

Says the ancient Buddha, " When a man hurts you, and you turn back to hurt him,

that would not cure the first injury; it would only create in the world one more

wickedness. " Sita was a true Indian by nature; she never returned injury.

 

Who knows which is the truer ideal? The apparent power and strength, as held in

the West, or the fortitude in suffering, of the East?

 

The West says, " We minimise evil by conquering it. " India says, " We destroy evil

by suffering, until evil is nothing to us, it becomes positive enjoyment. " Well,

both are great ideals. Who knows which will survive in the long run? Who knows

which attitude will really most benefit humanity? Who knows which will disarm

and conquer animality? Will it be suffering, or doing?

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prashant Jalasutram