A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"""""THE REAL AND TBE APPARENT MAN. 215course of time another big lion came in search of prey, andwhat was its astonishment to find that in the midst ofthis flock was this lion flying like the sheep at the approachor danger. He tried to get near to teach it that it wasnot a sheep, but a lion, yet at the every approach of theother lion the sheep fled, and with it the sheep-lion. Butthe other lion was rather kind, he watched, and one dayfound the big sheep-lion sleeping. He jumped on it andYou are a lion." I am a sheep,"cried the othersaid,lion. He would not believe, but bleated. The lion dragged him towards a lake and said, Look there, there ismy reflection and yours."Then came the comparison.He looked at this lion and then at his own reflection, andin a moment came the idea that he was a lion. Thelion roared, the bleating was gone. You are lions,you are souls, pure, infinite and perfect. The mightof the universe is in you.Why weepest thou, myfriend? There is neither birth nor death for thee.Why weepest thou? There is no disease nor miseryfor thee, but thou art like the infinite sky, clouds ofvarious colours come over it, play for a moment, thenvanish. It is the same eternal blue." This is thepractice. Why do we see wickedness ? There was a stumpof a tree in the dark at night. A thief came that wayand said, That is a policeman."A young man waitingfor his beloved came that way and thought that was hissweetheart. A child who had been told ghost storiescame out and began to shriek that it was a ghost. Butit was a stump of a tree. We see the world as we are.Put on the table a bag of gold and let a baby bethere. Let a thief come and take the gold. Wouldthe baby know it was stolen? That which we haveinside we see outside. The baby has no thief inside