A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE MISSION OF THE VEDANTA. 445mean by the breaking of caste that all people in acity should sit down together to a dinner of beefsteak andchampagne, nor that all fools and lunatics in the countryshould marry when, where, and whom they chose, andreduce the country to a lunatic asylum, nor did they believe that the prosperity of a nation is to be guaged bythe number of husbands its widows get. I am yet to seesucha prosperous nation.The ideal man of our ancestorswagfthe Brahmin. In all our books stands out prominentlythis ideal of the Brahmin. In Europe there isMy Lordfhe Cardinal who is struggling hard and spending thousandsof pounds to prove the nobility of his ancestors,and hewill not be satisfied until he has traced his ancestry toto spme dreadful tyrant, who lived on a hill, and watchedthe people passing through the streets, and whenever hehadthe opportunity sprang out on them and robbedthem.That was the business of these nobility-bestowing ancestors, and my Lord Cardinal is not satisfied until he cantrace his ancestry to one of these. In India, on the otherhand, the greatest princes seek to trace their descent tosome ancient sage, dre&sed in a bit of loincloth, living in aforest eating roots, and studying the Vedas. It is therethat the Indian prince goes to trace his ancestry. Ye arehigh caste when you can trace,) your ancestry to a Rishi,and not before that. Our ideal of high birth, therefore, isdifferent from that of others. Our ideal is the Brahminof spiritual culture and renunciation. By the Brahminideal what do I mean ? The ideal Brahminness in whichworldliness is altogether absent and true wisdom is abundantly present. That is the ideal of the Hindu race. Haveyou not heard how it is declared that he, the Brahmin, isnot amenable to law, that he has no law, that he is notgoverned by kings, and that his body cannot be hurt ?