TO HURL ONESELF UPON THE SWORD'S POINT
" Fools!" he exclaimed once - as he dwelt in quiet talk on " The worship of the Terrible, " on " becoming one with the Terrible " - " Fools! they put a garland of skulls round Thy neck, and then start back in terror, and call Thee " the Merciful"!". And as he spoke, the underlying egoism of worship that is devoted to the kind God, to Providence, the consoling Divinity, without a heart for God in the earthquake, or God in the volcano, overwhelmed the listener. One saw that such worship was at bottom, as the Hindu calls it, merely " Shop- keeping, " and one realised the infinitely greater boldness and truth of the teaching that God manifests through evil as well as through good. One saw that the true attitude for the mind and will that are not to be baffled by the mind and will that are not to be baffled by the personal self, was in fact the determination, in the stern words of the Swami Vivekananda, ' to seek death not life, to hurl oneself upon the sword's point, to be come one with the Terrible for evermore!"
- Swami Vivekananda
Page 136, The Master As I Saw Him - Sister Nivedita
" Fools!" he exclaimed once - as he dwelt in quiet talk on " The worship of the Terrible, " on " becoming one with the Terrible " - " Fools! they put a garland of skulls round Thy neck, and then start back in terror, and call Thee " the Merciful"!". And as he spoke, the underlying egoism of worship that is devoted to the kind God, to Providence, the consoling Divinity, without a heart for God in the earthquake, or God in the volcano, overwhelmed the listener. One saw that such worship was at bottom, as the Hindu calls it, merely " Shop- keeping, " and one realised the infinitely greater boldness and truth of the teaching that God manifests through evil as well as through good. One saw that the true attitude for the mind and will that are not to be baffled by the mind and will that are not to be baffled by the personal self, was in fact the determination, in the stern words of the Swami Vivekananda, ' to seek death not life, to hurl oneself upon the sword's point, to be come one with the Terrible for evermore!"
- Swami Vivekananda
Page 136, The Master As I Saw Him - Sister Nivedita
