A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"Him"TheHINDUISM AS A RELIGION. 45bv^ the highest stage is when the Lord has beenrealized."before theMark, the sanje earnest man who is kneelingthe sun. cannot express, nor the*iol tells yon,moon, nor the stars, the lightning cannot express him, northe fire ; through him theyall shine." He does not abusethe images or call it sinful. He recognises in it a necessary stage of his life.child is father of the man."Would it be right for the old man to say that childhood isa sin or youth a sin ? Nor is image-worship compulsoryin Hinduism.If a man can realize his divine nature most easilywith the help of an image, would it be right to call it asin ? Nor, even when he has passed that stage, should hecall it an error. To the Hindu, man is not travellingfrom error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower tohigher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowestfetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attemptsof the human soul to grasp and realize the infinite, eachdetermined by the conditions of its birth and association ;and each of these religions, therefore, marks a stage, ofprogress, and every soul is a child-eagle soaring higherand higher, gathering more and more strengthtill itreaches the Glorious Sun.DOGMAS AND PEGS.Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hinduhas recognizedit. Other religions lay down certain fixeddogmas, and try to force society to adopt them. Theyplace before society only one kind of coat which must fitJack and John and Henry,all alike. If it does not fitJohn or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover hisbody. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute canonly be realized, or thought of, or stated, through therelative, and the images, cross or crescent, are simply s