Saturday, December 24, 2011

" COME DO SOMETHING HEROIC? " LET HIM WHO HAS COURAGE IN HIS MIND AND LOVE IN HIS HEART COME WITH ME. I WANT NONE ELSE.......



......Avail yourselves of this stir that is rife all over the country, and scatter yourselves in all quarters. Let it not be an empty sound merely. Why are you nervous about conducting it? ... Come? Do something heroic! Brother, what if you do not attain Mukti, what if you suffer damnation a few times? Is the saying untrue?

" There are some saints who full of holiness in thought, word, and bleed, please the whole world by their numerous beneficent acts, and who develop their own hearts by magnifying an atom of virtue in others as if it were as great as a mountain" (Bhartrihari, Nitishataka).

What if you don't get Mukti? What childish prattle! Lord! They say even the venom of a snake loses its power by firmly denying it. Isn't it true? What queer humility is this to say, "I know nothing !" "I am nothing !" This is pseudo-renunciation and mock modesty, I tell you. Off with such a self-debasing spirit! "If I do not know, who on earth does!" What have you been doing so long if you now plead ignorance? These are the words of an atheist — the humility of a vagabond wretch. We can do everything, and will do everything! He who is fortunate enough will heroically join us, letting the worthless mew like cats from their corner. A saint writes, "Well, you have had enough of blazoning. Now come back home." I would have called him a man if he could build a house and call me. Ten years' experience of such things has made me wiser. I am no more to be duped by words. Let him who has courage in his mind and love in his heart come with me. I want none else.

- Swami Vivekananda
1895, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/LXXI Rakhal

 

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