A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

""SANNYAS :ITS IDEAL AND PRACTICE.HIS is not the time for a long Jecture. But I shallspeak to you in brief aboftt a few things which Ishould like you to carry into practice. First, we haveto understand the ideal, and then the methods by whichwe fcan make it practical. Those of you who are Sannyasinsmust try to do good to others, for Sannyas means that.^There is no time to deljver a long discourse on Renunciation, but I shall very briefly characterise it as the love ofWorldly people love life. The Sannyasinis to loveAre we to commit suicide then ? Far from it-For suicides are not lovers of death, as it is often se&i thatwhen a man trying to commit suicide fails, he neverattemptsit for a second time. What is the love of deaththen ? We must die, that is certain ;let us die then for agood cause. Let all our actions eating, drinking, andeverything that we do tend towards the sacrifice of ourself. You nourish your body by eating. What goodisthere in doing that if youdo* not hold it as a sacrifice tothe well-being of others ? You nourish your minds by reading books. There .is no good in doing that unless you holdit also as a sacrifice to the whole world. It is right foryou that you should serve your millions of brothers ratherthan aggrandise this little self. Thus you must die agradual death. In such a death is heaven, all good isstored therein and in its opposite is all that is diabolic?^and evil.* Reply given to a parting Address given to the Swamiji by thejunior Sannyasinsof the Math (Bel ur), on the eve of his leavingfor the West for the second time (19th June, 1899).