A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"40 HINDUISM AS A RELIGION.and the prayer goes,Lord, I do not want wealth, nct rchildren, nor learning. If it be Thy will L will go to ahundred hells, but grant me this, that I may love Theewithout the hope of reward unselfishly love for love ssake." One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor ofIndia, was driven from his throne by his enemiesand hadto take shelter in a forest in the Himalayas with his queen,and there one day the queen was asking him how it wasthat he, the most virtuous of men, should sulier so much"misery, and Yudhisthira answered :Behold, my queen,the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are. I lovenature isthem. They do not give me anything, but myto love the grand, the beautiful ;therefore I love them.Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty,of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved. Mynature is to love him, and therefore I love. Ido not prayfor anything, I do not ask for anything. Let him placerne wherever he likes. I must love him for love s sake. Icannot trade in love."SOUL ISDIVINE.The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only heldhere under the bondage of matter, and that perfection willbe reached by it when this bond shall burst, and ,the wordthey use for this perfection is, therefore, Mukti freedomfreedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom fromdeath and misery.And they teach that this bondage can onlyfall offthrough the mercy of God, and that this mercy comes tothe pure. So purityis the condition for the bestowal ofreveals himself toHis mercy. How that mercy acts ! Hethe pure heart, and the pure and stainless man sees God,yea, even in this life,and then, and then only, all thecrookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all