A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE COSMOS: THE MICROCOSM. 26&as> this of the internal man. How many millions of times,in how many countries, has this question been asked ?Sages and kings, poor and rich, saints and sinners, everym*ha,every woman, all have from time to time asked thisquestion Is there nothing permanent in this evanescent:human life ? Is there not something which does not dieaway when this body dies ? Is there not somethingliving dwhen this frame crumbles into a handful of dust ? Isthere not something which survives the fire which burnsthe body into ashes ? And if so, what is its destiny ? Wheredoes itgo ? Whence did it come ? These questions havebeen asked again and again, and so longas this creationlasts, so long as there are human brains to think, this question will have to be asked. Yet, it is not that the answer didnot come ;each time the answer came, and as time rolls on,the answer will gain strength, more and more. The question has been answered once for all, thousands of years ago,and through all subsequent time it is being re-stated, reillustrated,made clearer to our intellect. What we have todo, therefore, is to make a re-statement of the answer we;do not pretend to throw any new light on these all-absorbing problems our proposal is to attempt to put before you;the ancient, the hoary truth, in the language of moderntimes, to speak the thoughts of the ancients in the languageof the moderns, to speak the thoughts of the philosophersin the language of the people, to speak the thoughts of theangels in the language of men, to speak the thoughts ofGod in the language of poor humanity, so that men willunderstand it ;for we shall see later on that the same divineexistence from which the ideas emanated, is present evenin man ;the same existence which created the thoughtswill understand them Himself as manifested in man.I am looking at you. How many things are necessary