A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

160 MAYA AND ILLUSION.starving man. The same nerves that carry the sensationsof misery carry also the sensations of happiness. To stopevil, therefore, the only wayis to stop the good also there;is no other way that is sure. To stop death, we shall haveto stop life also.Life without death, and happiness without misery are contradictions, and neither can be true because both of them are manifestations of the same thing.What I thought to be good yesterday, I do not think to begood now. In all my life, when I look back upon andit,see my ideals that have been at different times, I find thisto be so. At one time, my ideal was to drive a strong pairof horses ;I do not think so now. At another time, when Iwas a little child, I ifthought, I could learn to make a certainkind of sweetmeat, I should be perfectly happy. At anothertime, I thought I should be perfectly happy if I had a wifeand children and plenty of money. I laugh at them all nowas childish nonsense. The Vedanta says, there must comea time when we look back and laugh at these ideals of ourswhich made us afraid of giving up our individuality. Eachone wants to keep this body and not give it up, and ouridea is that if we can keep the body for an indefinitetime we shall be very happy, but there will come a time whenwe shall laugh at that too. Now,if such be the state ofthings, we are in a state of helpless contradiction, neitherexistence, nor non-existence but a mixture of them both ;neither misery, nor happiness, but a mixture of themboth. Then what is the use of Vedanta, and all otherphilosophies and religions ? And, above all,what is theuse of doing good work ? This is a question thatcomes to the mind, for people will always ask you ifsuch is the state of things, that whenever you try todo good the same evil remains, and whenever you tryto create happiness there will always be mountains high