A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

..ovluued"50 HINDUISM AS A RELIGION.realized it.My thanks to the shower of liberal sentimentsthat has overflowed this platform. My thanks to thisenlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me an(lfor their appreciation of every thought that tends tosmooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes wereheard from time to time in this harmony. My specialthanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrastmade the general harmony the sweeter.Much has been said of the common ground of religiousunity. I am not going just now to venture out my newtheory. But ifany one here hopes that this unity willcome by the triumph of any one of these religions and thedestruction of all the others, to him I say:Brother,yours is an impossible Do I wish that thehope."Christianshould become the Hindu ? God forbid. Do I wish thatthe Hindu or the Buddhist should become the Christian ?God forbid.The seed isput in the ground, and the earth and theair and the water are around it. Does the seed becomethe earth, or the air, or the water ? No. It becomes aplant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates to itself the air, the earth, and the water, convertsthem into plant substance, and grows a plant.Similar is the case with ^religion. The Christian isnot to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor the Hindunor the Buddhist to become a Christian. But each religionnnist assimilate the others and yet preserve its own individuality and grow according to its own law of growth.If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything tothe world it is this, It has proved to the world that holim,ptn ity alu^ charity are not the exclusive possessionsoi any church in the world and that every system hasmen and women of the most exalted character.