A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

andrace"Not478 CHRIST, THE MESSENGER.for excellence, the same idea of Greek and Barbarian;but it has become a huger circle. In Asia ev#n to-day,birth or colour or language never makes a race. Thatwhich makes "a is its religion. We are all Christians,we are all Mahomedans ;we are all Hindus, or all Buddhists. No matter if one is a Chinaman, or the otherBuddhist is a man from Persia, they think that the^Tarebrothers, because of their religion. Religion is the tie,the unity of humanity. And then, the Oriental, for thesame reason, is a visionary, is a dreamer born.The ripplesof the waterfalls, the songs of the birds, the beauties ofthe sun and moon and the stars and the whole earth, arepleasant enough ;but they are not sufficient for the or^entalmind. He wants to dream a dream beyond.lHewants to gt^fesyond the present. The present, as it were,is nothing to him. And it (the orient) has been the cradleof the human race for ages. And all the vicissitudes offortune are there.Kingdoms succeeding kingdoms; empiressucceeding empires ;human power, glory and wealth, allrolling down there : a Golgotha of power, of kingdoms, oflearning. No wonder the oriental mind looks with contempt upon the things of this world and naturally wantsto see something that changeth not, something which diethnot, something which in the midst of this world of miseryand death is eternal, joyful, undying. An oriental prophet never tires of insisting upon these ideals ;and as forprophets you may also remember that without one exception all the Messengers were Orientals."Wesee, therefore, in the life of this great Messengerof life,the first watchword,this life, but somethinglike the true son of the orient, he is practichigher",al in that. You people of the West are practical in yourown departments in military affairs, in managing politic-