Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantaideas? You must get rid of this tendency once for all. Accord a place to everyone.I once read a story about some ships that were caught in a cyclone in the SouthSea Islands, and there was a picture of it in the Illustrated London News. All ofthem were wrecked except one English vessel, which weathered the storm. Thepicture showed the men who were going to be drowned, standing on the decks andcheering the people who were sailing through the storm (H.M.S. Calliope and theAmerican men-of-war at Samoa. — Ed). Be brave and generous like that. Do notdrag others down to where you are. Another foolish notion is that if we lose ourlittle individuality, there will be no morality, no hope for humanity. As ifeverybody had been dying for humanity all the time! God bless you! If in everycountry there were two hundred men and women really wanting to do good tohumanity, the millennium would come in five days. We know how we are dyingfor humanity! These are all tall talks, and nothing else. The history of the worldshows that those who never thought of their little individuality were the greatestbenefactors of the human race, and that the more men and women think ofthemselves, the less are they able to do for others. One is unselfishness, and theother selfishness. Clinging on to little enjoyments, and to desire the continuationand repetition of this state of things is utter selfishness. It arises not from anydesire for truth, its genesis is not in kindness for other beings, but in the utterselfishness of the human heart, in the idea, "I will have everything, and do not carefor anyone else." This is as it appears to me. I would like to see more moral menin the world like some of those grand old prophets and sages of ancient times whowould have given up a hundred lives if they could by so doing benefit one littleanimal! Talk of morality and doing good to others! Silly talk of the present time!I would like to see moral men like Gautama Buddha, who did not believe in aPersonal God or a personal soul, never asked about them, but was a perfectagnostic, and yet was ready to lay down his life for anyone, and worked all his lifefor the good of all, and thought only of the good of all. Well has it been said by hisbiographer, in describing his birth, that he was born for the good of the many, as ablessing to the many. He did not go to the forest to meditate for his own salvation;he felt that the world was burning, and that he must find a way out. "Why is thereso much misery in the world ?" — was the one question that dominated his wholelife. Do you think we are so moral as the Buddha?The more selfish a man, the more immoral he is. And so also with the race. Thatrace which is bound down to itself has been the most cruel and the most wicked inthe whole world. There has not been a religion that has clung to this dualism morethan that founded by the Prophet of Arabia, and there has not been a religionwhich has shed so much blood and been so cruel to other men. In the Koran thereis the doctrine that a man who does not believe these teachings should be killed; itis a mercy to kill him! And the surest way to get to heaven, where there arebeautiful houris and all sorts of sense-enjoyments, is by killing these unbelievers.Think of the bloodshed there has been in consequence of such beliefs!In the religion of Christ there was little of crudeness; there is very little differencefile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (36 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM