Vivekananda Mailing List-9/27/03

[Guest guest]

Two kinds of men do not worship God as man — the human brute who has no

religion, and the Paramahamsa who has risen beyond all the weaknesses

of humanity and has transcended the limits of his own human nature. To

him all nature has become his own Self. He alone can worship God as He

is. Here, too, as in all other cases, the two extremes meet. The

extreme of ignorance and the other extreme of knowledge — neither of

these go through acts of worship. The human brute does not worship

because of his ignorance, and the Jivanmuktas (free souls) do not

worship because they have realised God in themselves. Being between

these two poles of existence, if any one tells you that he is not going

to worship God as man, take kindly care of that man; he is, not to use

any harsher term, an irresponsible talker; his religion is for unsound

and empty brains.