A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

172 MAYA AND THE CONCEPTION OF GOD.there this disharmony in the Universe ? Whyis therethis evil in the Universe ? We do not fiyd this questionin the very primitive inception of religious ideas becausethe world did not appear incongruous to the primitiveman. Circumstances around him were not inharmonious ;there was no clash of opinions ; no antagonism of goodand evil. There was merely the fight in his own heartbetween something which said yea, and something whichsaid nay. The primitive man was a man of impulse. Hedid what occurred to him, and tried to bring out into hismuscles whatever thought got into his mind, and he neverstopped to judge, and very little to check impulses whichcame into his mind. So with these gods, they were alsocreatures of impulse. Indra comes and shatters tho forcesof the demons. Jehovah is pleased with ^someone anddispleased with someone else, for what reason no oneknows or asks ;for the habit of inquiry had not thenarisen, and whatever he does is right. There is no idea ofgood or evil. The Devas did many wicked things in oursense of the word ; again and again Indra and other godsare doing very wicked things, but to the worshippers ofIndra the ideas of wickedness and evil did not occur, sothey did not question.With the advance of ethical ideas came the fight.There arose a certain sense in man ;different languagesand nations called itby different names, and it acted as achecking power, for the impulses of the human heart arethe voice of God, or the result of past education, and soforth, but whatever it is called the effect is the same.There is one impulse in our minds which says, do. Behindit rises another voice which says, do not. There is one setof ideas in our mind which is always struggling to get outside through the channels of the senses, and behind that