A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"That"What""456 THE SAGES OF INDIA.of the world in the language of the Vedas : *f Vainare your fights and your quarrels have you seen God;whom you want to preach ? If you have not seen, vain isyour preaching ; you do not know what you say, and if youhave seen God youwill not quarrel, your very face willshine." An ancient sage of the Upanishads, sent his sonout to learn about Brahman, and the child came bar]",andthe father askedhave you learnt ? The childreplied he had learnt so many sciences. But the father said,is nothing, go And back." the son went back, andwhen he returned again the father asked the same question,and the same number of sciences was the answer from thechild. Once more he had to go back, and the next timehe came, his whole face was shining, and his father stoodup and declared,A.ve, to-day, my child, your face shineslike a knower of God." When you have known God yourvery face will be changed, your voice will be changed, yourwhole appearance will be changed. You will be a blessingto mankind : none will be able to resist the Rishi. This isthe Rishihood, the ideal in our religion. The rest, all thesetalks, and reasonings, and philosophies, and dualisms, andmonisms, even the Vedas themselves are but preparations,secondary. The other is primary. The Vedas, Grammar,Astronomy, &c., all these are secondary that is; supremeknowledge which makes us realise the unchangeable one.Those who realised are the sages whom we find in theVedas, and we understand how this Rishi istype, of a class, which every one of us, as truethe name of aHindus, isexpected to become at some period of our life, and which,to the Hindu, means salvation. Not belief in doctrines,nor going to thousands of temples, nor bathing in all therivers in the world, but becoming the Rishi, the Mantradrastha, that is freedom, that is salvation.