A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"""""What""THE REAL AND THE APPARENT MAN*is the tenacity with which man clings to thesenses, yetfREAThowever substantial he may think theexternal world in which he lives and moves, therecome times in the lives of individuals and of races when,Is this real ? To the person whoinvoluntarily, they ask,never finds a moment to question the credentials of hissenses, whose every moment is occupied with some sort ofsense-enjoyment even to him death comes, and he also is"compelled to ask : Is this real ?Religion begins with thisquestion and ends with the answer. Even in the remotepast where recorded history cannot help us, in the mysterious light of mythology, back in the dim twilight of civilisation, we find the same question was asked What becomesof this ? What is real ?One of the most poetical of the Upanishads, the KathaUpanishad, begins with the "enquiry When a man dies:there is a contention. One party declares that he has gonefor ever, the other insists that he is still living.Which istrue ?Various answers have been given. The wholesphere of Metaphysics, Philosophy and Religion is reallyfilled with various answers to this question. Attempts atthe same time have been made to suppress to it, put a stopto this unrest of mind, which asks,beyond? Whatis real ?" But so long as death remains all these attemptsat suppression will uniformly prove to be unsuccessful.We may very easily talk about seeing nothing beyond andkeeping all our hopes and aspirations confined to the* A lecture delivered in England.