Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantadifference is only in degree; and from the standpoint of the highest life, all thesedifferences vanish. A man may see a great deal of difference between grass and alittle tree, but if you mount very high, the grass and the biggest tree will appearmuch the same. So, from the standpoint of the highest ideal, the lowest animal andthe highest man are the same. If you believe there is a God, the animals and thehighest creatures must be the same. A God who is partial to his children calledmen, and cruel to his children called brute beasts, is worse than a demon. I wouldrather die a hundred times than worship such a God. My whole life would be afight with such a God But there is no difference, and those who say there is, areirresponsible, heartless people who do not know. Here is a case of the wordpractical used in a wrong sense. I myself may not be a very strict vegetarian, but Iunderstand the ideal. When I eat meat I know it is wrong. Even if I am bound toeat it under certain circumstances, I know it is cruel. I must not drag my idealdown to the actual and apologise for my weak conduct in this way. The ideal is notto eat flesh, not to injure any being, for all animals are my brothers. If you canthink of them as your brothers, you have made a little headway towards thebrotherhood of all souls, not to speak of the brotherhood of man! That is child'splay. You generally find that this is not very acceptable to many, because itteaches them to give up the actual, and go higher up to the ideal. But if you bringout a theory which is reconciled with their present conduct, they regard it asentirely practical.There is this strongly conservative tendency in human nature: we do not like tomove one step forward. I think of mankind just as I read of persons who becomefrozen in snow; all such, they say, want to go to sleep, and if you try to drag themup, they say, "Let me sleep; it is so beautiful to sleep in the snow", and they diethere in that sleep. So is our nature. That is what we are doing all our life, gettingfrozen from the feet upwards, and yet wanting to sleep. Therefore you muststruggle towards the ideal, and if a man comes who wants to bring that ideal downto your level, and teach a religion that does not carry that highest ideal, do notlisten to him. To me that is an impracticable religion. But if a man teaches areligion which presents the highest ideal, I am ready for him. Beware when anyoneis trying to apologise for sense vanities and sense weaknesses. If anyone wants topreach that way to us, poor, sense-bound clods of earth as we have made ourselvesby following that teaching, we shall never progress. I have seen many of thesethings, have had some experience of the world, and my country is the land wherereligious sects grow like mushrooms. Every year new sects arise. But one thing Ihave marked, that it is only those that never want to reconcile the man of fleshwith the man of truth that make progress. Wherever there is this false idea ofreconciling fleshly vanities with the highest ideals, of dragging down God to thelevel of man, there comes decay. Man should not be degraded to worldly slavery,but should be raised up to God.At the same time, there is another side to the question. We must not look downwith contempt on others. All of us are going towards the same goal. The differencefile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selvar...ooksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (5 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM