A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

MY MASTER. ,11professor, and went to study with him. After a shorttime the bov became convinced that the aim of all secularlearning was mere ..material advancement, and he resolvedto give up study and devote himself to the pursuit ofspiritual knowledge. The father being dead, the familyvery poor, and this boy had to make his own living.He went to a place near Calcutta and became a templepriest. To become a temple priest isthought verydegrading to a Brahmin. Our temples are not churrhe-,in your sense of the word, they are not places for publicworship, for, r properly speaking, there is no sueh thing aspublic worship in India. Temples are erected mostly byrich persons as a meritorious religious act.If a man lias imu-h property, he wants to build a temple. In that he puts a >yml>olor an image of an Incarnationof God, and dedicates it to worship in the name of God.The worshipis akin to that which is conducted in RomanCatholic churches, very much like*the Mass, reading certainsentences from the Sacred Books, waving a light beforethe image, and treating the image in every respect ay wetreat a great man. This is all that is done in the temple.Th^ man who goes to a templeis not considered thereby abetter man than he who never goes. More properly thelattejr is considered the more religious man, for Religion inIndia is to each man his own private affair and all hisworship is conducted in the privacy of his own home. Ithas been held from the most ancient times in our countrythat it is a degenerating occupation to become a templepriest. There is another idea behind it, that, just as witheducation, but in a far more intense sense with religion,the fact that temple priests take fees for their work ismaking merchandise of sacred things. So you may imagine