HENCE IT FOLLOWS THAT IT IS SOLELY IN THE HANDS OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL TO CONTROL HIS TENDENCIES AND TO GUIDE THEM PROPERLY

 Q. Why should there be even this difference relating to individual use? Why should there be at all this tendency in man to make bad or improper use of any of his faculties?

Swamiji: That tendency comes as a result of one's own past actions (Karma); everything one has is of his own doing. Hence it follows that it is solely in the hands of every individua...l to control his tendencies and to guide them properly.

Q. Even if everything is the result of our Karma, still it must have had a beginning, and why should our tendencies have been good or bad at the beginning?

Swamiji: How do you know that there is a beginning? The Srishti (creation) is without beginning — this is the doctrine of the Vedas. So long as there is God, there is creation as well.

- Swami Vivekananda
[Shri Surendra Nath Sen — from private diary]
SUNDAY, THE 23RD JANUARY, 1898