Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 109)

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Parts 1 to 108 were posted earlier. This is part 109. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 109

 

2. Bringing Religion and Freedom within Your Easy Reach

This forms the one great question asked by Vedanta: why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent upon others. We are so lazy we do not want to do anything for ourselves. We want a personal God, a savior or prophet to do everything for us. Very rich people never walk; they always go in a carriage; but in the course of years, they wake up one day paralyzed all over. Then they begins to feel that the way they had lived was not good, after all. No one can walk for me. Ever time one did, it was to my injury. If everything is done for a someone by another, he or she will lose the use of his or her own limbs. Anything we do ourselves, that is the only thing we do. Anything that is done for us by another never can be ours. You cannot learn spiritual truths from my lectures. If you have learned anything, I was only the spark that brought it out, made it flash. That is all the prophets and teachers can do. All this running after help is foolishness. (5)

Stand upon your own feet. You have the power within you!... Strength! Strength!... I preach nothing but strength. That is why I preach the Upanishads. (6)

We have a place for struggle in Vedanta, but not for fear. All fears will vanish when you begin to assert your own nature. If you think you are bound, bound you will remain. If you think you are free, free you will be. (7)

The quintessence of the Vedanta philosophy, as also the keynote of the Upanishads consists in this: fearlessness! fearlessness! Be fearless, away with all weakness. If you can do this, then alone you are a true human being indeed. Whom to fear? What to fear? The Atman that shines through you is the same Atman dwelling in all. If you cannot perceive the identity of the Atman in all individuals, if you cannot sympathize with the afflictions of all, if you cannot remove the sufferings of others, if your heart does not well out in love for one and all, and you are unable to serve others to the best of your ability - how do you reckon yourself a human being? You are no better than a beast. Is it not an absurdity on your part to talk of religion? So, first try to be a human being in the true sense of the term: strong, virile, self-relying. You will then see that religion and liberation will be within your easy reach. (8)

 

Cross reference to:

Cha. Up., 7.25

Brih. Up., 1.4.2

2.4.14

Is Up. Peace Chant

Mund. Up., 3.2.4