Friday, November 2, 2018

Speaking and Not Doing - National Habit!

In spite of the greatness of the Upanishads, in spite of our boasted ancestry of sages, compared to many other races, 
I must tell you that we are weak, very weak. 
First of all is our physical weakness. That physical weakness is the cause of at least one-third of our miseries. 

We are lazy, we cannot work; we cannot combine, we do not love each other; we are intensely selfish, not three of us can come together without hating each other, without being jealous of each other. 
That is the state in which we are -- hopelessly disorganised mobs, immensely selfish, fighting each other for centuries as to whether a certain mark is to be put on our forehead this way or that way, writing volumes and volumes upon such momentous questions as to whether the look of a man spoils my food or not! 
This we have been doing for the past few centuries. 

We cannot expect anything high from a race whose whole brain energy has been occupied in such wonderfully beautiful problems and researches! 
And are we not ashamed of ourselves? 
Ay, sometimes we are; but though we think these things frivolous, we cannot give them up. We speak of many things parrot-like, but never do them; speaking and not doing has become a habit with us. 

            - Swami Vivekananda, 
              Address at Madras, 
              Lectures From Colombo to Almora


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