A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

MAYA AND THE CONCEPTION OF GOD. 171ever incongruous, hideous, horrible, or disgusting may havebeenthese ideas,when judged according to theconceptionsof to-day. When these ideas had the setting of past times*they were harmonious, they were not more hideous thanour present ideas. It is only when we try to take themout of these settings and apply them to our own presentcircumstances, that the hideousness becomes obvious. It i&allgone and dead and past. Just as the old Jew hasdeveloped into the keen, modern, sharp Jew, and the ancientAryan into the intellectual Hindu, similarly Jehovah hasgrown, and Devas have grown. The great mistake is inrecognising the evolution of the worshippers, while we donot acknowledge the evolution of the God. He is notcredited with the advance that his devotees have made.That is to say you and I, as representing ideas, have grown ;these gods also, as representing ideas, have grown. Thismay seem somewhat curious to you how can God grow?In the same sense man never grows. We will see later onhow the real man behind each one of these manifestationsis immovable, unchangeable, pure and always perfect and;in the same way the idea of God that we form is a meremanifestation, our own creation. Behind that is the realGod who never changes, the ever pure, the immutable.But the manifestations are always changing, revealing thereality behind more and more. When it reveals more ofthe fact behind, it is called progression, when it hides moreof the fact behind, it is called retrogression. Thus, as wegrow, so the gods grow. From the common-sense point ofview, just as we reveal ourselves, as we evolve, so the godsreveal themselves.We shall now be in a position to understand thetheory of Maya. In stating all the religions of the worldthe one question they propose to discuss is this :Why is