Vivekananda Mailing List-8/23/03

[Guest guest]

Bhakti-Yoga, as we have said, is divided into the Gauni or the

preparatory, and the Parâ or the supreme forms. We shall find, as we go

on, how in the preparatory stage we unavoidably stand in need of many

concrete helps to enable us to get on; and indeed the mythological and

symbological parts of all religions are natural growths which early

environ the aspiring soul and help it Godward. It is also a significant

fact that spiritual giants have been produced only in those systems of

religion where there is an exuberant growth of rich mythology and

ritualism. The dry fanatical forms of religion which attempt to

eradicate all that is poetical, all that is beautiful and sublime, all

that gives a firm grasp to the infant mind tottering in its Godward way

— the forms which attempt to break down the very ridge-poles of the

spiritual roof, and in their ignorant and superstitious conceptions of

truth try to drive away all that is life-giving, all that furnishes the

formative material to the spiritual plant growing in the human soul —

such forms of religion too soon find that all that is left to them is

but an empty shell, a contentless frame of words and sophistry with

perhaps a little flavour of a kind of social scavengering or the

so-called spirit of reform.