And this, is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really, my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter; and Advaita, or unity, is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul. Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus, chemistry could not progress farther, when it would discover one element out of which all others could be made.
Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfil its services in discovering one energy of which all the others are but manifestations. And the science of religion becomes perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death; Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world, One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations.
Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science. All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light from the latest conclusion of science.
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 rose called by any other name would smell as sweet. Names are not explanations.
The tree is known by its fruits. Superstition is a great enemy of man, but, bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are these so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa.
This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you, it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God superficial area? As we find that somehow or other by the laws of our mental constitution we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the images of the blue sky or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church a mosque or a cross.
The Hindus have associated the ideas 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. He must not stop anywhere. Mahanirvana Tantra He recognizes in it a necessary stage of life. Would it be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin? If a man can realize 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 traveling 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 realize the infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and associations, 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.
Unity in variety is the plan of nature. And the Hindu has recognized it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them.
It places before society only one coat, which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realized, and the images crosses and crescents are simply so many symbols, so many pegs to hang spiritual ideas on.
It is not that this help is necessary for everyone, but those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism. One thing I must tell you: idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible.
It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths. The Hindus have their faults; they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies and never for cutting the throats of their neighbors.
If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity.
To the Hindu then, the whole world of religions is only a traveling, 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? The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures. It is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation.
But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns. Gita And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others. One thing more. How, then can, the Hindu whose whole fabric of thought centers in God believe in Buddhism which is agnostic, or in Jainsim which is atheistic?
The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also. The actor portraying Swami Vivekananda is in fact Balaji Manohar. In the full movie video below, you can see the clipping from timeframe So, the videos and audios claiming to show the real voice of Swami Vivekananda during his historic Chicago speech in are fake.
Advaita Ashrama is a premier publishing house of the Ramakrishna Order. You must be logged in to post a comment. The Real Voice of Swami Vivekanand 2. Like it? More from Sahapedia. Selvaraj in Conversation with Dr M. Knowledge Traditions People. Breaking the Race Barrier: Sports Culture among…. Visual and Material Arts Histories. Early Records of Petroglyphs and Rock Art from…. Early Buddhist Rock Art in Ladakh.
Rock Art and Petroglyphs of Ladakh. A Lifetime of Contemplation: In Conversation with…. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.
I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.
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