A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

ithousand\482 CHRIST, THE MESSENGER.are not afraid of all the criticisms of the scholars. Itstands there. I, as an oriental, if I am to worship Jesusof Nazareth, there is only one way left to ma to :worshipHim as God and nothing else. Think of that.No right to worship, do you mean to say? Bringhim down to all political ideas, and simply payv aima little respect, as one of the Presidents of tfce UnitedStates, or something else ? Why should we worship atall. Our writers say :"Thesegreat children of light, who manifest thelight themselves, who are light themselves, they beingworshipped become, as it were, one with us and webecome one with them."For, you see, in three ways man perceives God :, atfirst the low ^intellect, tne little uneducated man, undeveloped with; him, God is far away, up in the heavenssomewhere, sitting there on a throne. He is a greatjudge he is a fire : he is a terror.; Now, that is good,for there isnothing bad. You must remember thathumanity travels not from error to truth, but fromtruth to truth. It may be, if you like it better, fromlower truth to higher truth ;but never from error totruth. Suppose you start 7from here and travel towardsthe sun in a straight line. From here the sun looksonly small in size. Suppose you go forward a millionmiles : the sun will be much bigger and so on and on.;At every stage the sun isbecoming bigger and huger.Suppose twenty thousand photographs have been takenof this very sun, from different points these twenty:when looked upon will certainly differeach from the other. But can you denythat each is aphotograph of the same sun ? So all forms of religion,low or high, are just different stages towards that eternal\