A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

410 VEDANTA IN INDIAN LIFE.a more perfect expression of the whole philosophy of theworld ;the gist of what the Hindus ever thought, ^hewholedream of human salvation painted in language Vnorewonderful, in figures more marvellous ? (Quoted a Sanskrit passage and proceeded to say). Upon the same treeere are two birds of beautiful plumage, most friendly toeacK*Vher, one eating the fruits, the other without eating,sitting there calm and silent the one on;the fcwer brancheating sweet and bitter fruits in turn and becoming happyand unhappy, but the one on the top calm and majestic ;eats neither sweet not bitter, cares for neither happinessnor misery, immersed in his own glory. This is the pictureof the human soul. Man is eating the sweets and bitters ofthis life, pursuing gold, pursuing his senses, pursuing thevanitiesof life, hopelessly, madly careering he goes. Inother places the Upanishads have compared(it to thecharioteer and the mad horses unrestrained. Such isthe career of men pursuing the vanities of life, childrendreaming golden dreams to find that they were but vain,and old men chewing the cud of their past deeds, and yetnot knowing how to get out of this network. Thus weare ; yet in the life of every one there come golden moments,,in the midst of deepest sorrows, nay, of deepest joy therecomemoments when, as it were, a part of the cloud thathides the sunlight moves nway and we catch a glimpse inspite of ourselves of something beyond, away, awaybeyond the life of the senses, away, away beyond itsvanities, its joys and its sorrows, away, away beyondNature, in our imaginations of happiness here or hereafter,away beyond all thirst for gold or for fame or for name orfor prosperity. Man stops for a moment in this glimpse,he sees the other bird calm and majestic, eating neithersweetnot bitter fruits, immersed in his own glory, self-