swami vivekananda -MY PLAY IS DONE

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MY PLAY IS DONE - Swami Vivekananda

(Written in the Spring of 1895 in New York)

 

 

Ever rising, ever falling with the waves of time,

still rolling on I go

>From fleeting scene to scene ephemeral,

with life's currents' ebb and flow.

Oh! I am sick of this unending force;

these shows they please no more.

This ever running, never reaching,

nor e'en a distant glimpse of shore!

>From life to life I'm waiting at the gates,

alas, they open not.

Dim are my eyes with vain attempt

to catch one ray long sought.

On little life's high, narrow bridge

I stand and see below

The struggling, crying, laughing throng.

For what? No one can know.

In front yon gates stand frowning dark,

and say: "No farther way,

This is the limit; tempt not Fate,

bear it as best you may;

Go, mix with them and drink this cup

and be as mad as they.

Who dares to know but comes to grief;

stop then, and with them stay."

Alas for me. I cannot rest.

This floating bubble, earth â€"

Its hollow form, its hollow name,

its hollow death and birth â€"

For me is nothing. How I long

to get beyond the crust

Of name and form! Ah! ope the gates;

to me they open must.

Open the gates of light, O Mother, to me Thy tired son.

I long, oh, long to return home!

Mother, my play is done.

You sent me out in the dark to play,

and wore a frightful mask;

Then hope departed, terror came,

and play became a task.

Tossed to and fro, from wave to wave

in this seething, surging sea

Of passions strong and sorrows deep,

grief is, and joy to be,

Where life is living death, alas! and death â€"

who knows but 'tis

Another start, another round of this old wheel

of grief and bliss?

Where children dream bright, golden dreams,

too soon to find them dust,

And aye look back to hope long lost

and life a mass of rust!

Too late, the knowledge age cloth gain;

scarce from the wheel we're gone

When fresh, young lives put their strength

to the wheel, which thus goes on

>From day to day and year to year.

'Tis but delusion's toy,

False hope its motor; desire, nave;

its spokes are grief and joy.

I go adrift and know not whither.

Save me from this fire!

Rescue me, merciful Mother, from floating with desire!

Turn not to me Thy awful face,

'tis more than I can bear.

Be merciful and kind to me,

to chide my faults forbear.

Take me, O Mother, to those shores

where strifes for ever cease;

Beyond all sorrows, beyond tears,

beyond e'en earthly bliss;

Whose glory neither sun, nor moon,

nor stars that twinkle bright,

Nor flash of lightning can express.

They but reflect its light.

Let never more delusive dreams

veil off Thy face from me.

My play is done, O Mother,

break my chains and make me free!

 

 

 

 

"God is Consciousness that pervades the entire universe of the

living and non-living."

Sri Ramakrishna

 

 

 

, Chetan Merani <cvmerani@r...>

wrote:

> JANUARY 14 WAS MAKAR SNKRANTI AND ALSO SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S

> JANAMATITHI(BIRTHDAY) THIS YEAR. HERE IS A THREE PAGE SUMMARY OF

HIS

> EIGHT PAGE `PAPER ON HINDUISM' READ AT PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS

HELD IN

> CHICAGO IN 1893. IT IS ILLUMINATING AS IT ANSWERS MANY FAQ ON

> HINDUISM. FULL TEXT IS GIVEN IN THE ENCLOSURE AND CAN ALSO BE READ

AT

> SITE:

> http://www.sriramakrishnamath.org/guiding/epochmaking.asp?

val=topic3

> THIS SITE GIVES TEXT OF ALL THE SIX LECTURES HE GAVE AT THE

PARLIAMENT.

> CHETAN

>

>

> SUMMARY

> OF

> PAPER ON HINDUISM

> Read at the Parliament on 19 September, 1893

>

> Three religions now stand in the world which have come down to us

from

> time prehistoric—Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. They have

all

> received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their survival

> their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb

> Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its

> all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that

remains

> to tell the tale of their grand religion, sect after sect arose in

> India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very

> foundations, but like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous

> earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an

> all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous, and when the

> tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in,

absorbed,

> and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith.

> From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of

which the

> latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of

> idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the

> Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place

in

> the Hindu's religion.

> Where then, the question arises, where is the common centre to

which

> all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common

basis

> upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And

this

> is the question I shall attempt to answer.

>

> The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the

Vedas.

> They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end.

…..by

> the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of

> spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times.

The

> discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as

> perfected beings. The Vedas teach us that creation is without

beginning

> or end. …..creation and creator are two lines, without beginning

and

> without end, running parallel to each other. God is the ever active

> providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved

out

> of chaos, made to run for a time, and again destroyed.

> Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce—

him the

> fire cannot burn—him the water cannot melt—him the air cannot dry.

The

> Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is

> nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body, and that death

means

> the change of this centre from body to body.

> Why should the free, perfect, and pure being be thus under the

thraldom

> of matter, is the next question. ………(Hindu's) answer is: "I do not

> know. I do not know how the perfect being, the soul, came to think

of

> itself as imperfect, as joined to and conditioned by matter."

Well,

> then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and

infinite, and

> death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The

> present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the

> present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from

birth

> to birth and death to death. Is there no hope? Is there no escape?—

(A

> Vedic sage said,) "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! even ye

that

> reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is

beyond

> all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved

from

> death over again."

> …..the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of

God,

> the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye

divinities

> on earth—sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing

libel

> on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that

you

> are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and

eternal; ye

> are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you

the

> servant of matter.

> And what is His nature?

> He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the

> All-merciful. "Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art

our

> beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us

strength.

> Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear

the

> little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Veda. And

how

> to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshipped as the one

> beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life."

> This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see

how

> it is fully developed and taught by Krishna, whom the Hindus

believe to

> have been God incarnate on earth.

> He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf,

> which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man

ought to

> live in the world—his heart to God and his hands to work.

> It is good to love God for hope of reward in this or the next

world,

> but it is better to love God for love's sake, and the prayer goes:

> "Lord, I do not want wealth, nor children, nor learning. If it be

Thy

> will, I shall go from birth to birth, but grant me this, that I may

> love Thee without the hope of reward—love unselfishly for love's

sake."

>

> The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage

of

> matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and

the

> word they use for it is therefore, Mukti—freedom, freedom from the

> bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery.

> And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and

this

> mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of His mercy.

> The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories.

> If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an

> all-merciful universal Soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see

Him,

> and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu

sage

> gives about the soul, about God, is: "I have seen the soul; I have

seen

> God." And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu

religion

> does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain

> doctrine or dogma, but in realising—not in believing, but in being

and

> becoming.

> when a soul becomes perfect and absolute, it must become one with

> Brahman, and it would only realise the Lord as the perfection, the

> reality, of its own nature and existence, the existence absolute,

> knowledge absolute, and bliss absolute. We have often and often

read

> this called the losing of individuality and becoming a stock or a

> stone.

> I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy

the

> consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to

enjoy

> the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness

increasing

> with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the aim,

the

> ultimate of happiness being reached when it would become a

universal

> consciousness.

> Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this

> miserable little prison-individuality must go.

> Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the religion

of

> the ignorant. At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no

> polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and

listens, one

> will find the worshippers applying all the attributes of God,

including

> omnipresence, to the images.

> The tree is known by its fruits. When I have seen amongst them

that are

> called idolaters, men, the like of whom, in morality and

spirituality

> and love I have never seen anywhere, I stop and ask myself, "Can

sin

> beget holiness?"

> The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth,

> omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and

forms. But

> with this difference that while some people devote their whole

lives to

> their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them

> religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and

doing

> good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centred

in

> realization. Man is to become divine by realizing the divine.

Idols or

> temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of

his

> spiritual childhood; but on and on he must progress.

> If a man can realise his divine nature with the help of an image,

would

> it be right to call that a sin? Nor even when he has passed that

stage,

> should he call it an error. To the Hindu, man is not travelling

from

> error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher

truth. To

> him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest

> absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and

> realise the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its

birth

> and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and

every

> soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and

> more strength, till it reaches the Glorious Sun.

> To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religions is only a

travelling,

> a coming up, of different men and women, through various

conditions and

> circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a

God

> out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of

> them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only

> apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same

truth

> adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures.

> The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as

Krishna, "I am

> in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls.

Wherever

> thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising

and

> purifying humanity, know thou that I am there.

> This, brethren, is a short sketch of the religious ideas of the

Hindus.

> The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there

is

> ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no

> location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it

will

> preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and

of

> Christ, on saints and sinners alike;

> It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or

> intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every

man

> and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be

created in

> aiding humanity to realise its own true, divine nature.

> Source:<http://www.sriramakrishnamath.org/guiding/epochmaking.asp?

val=topic3>

>

>

> =====

> Chetan Merani

>

>

>

>

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