Lost in the mazes and divisions of the "Religion Eternal",
by prepossession and prejudice unable to grasp the meaning of the only religion whose universal adaptation is the exact shadow of the अणोरणीयान् महतो महीयान् (Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest [Katha, II. 20]) God it preaches,
groping in the dark with a standard of spiritual truth borrowed second-hand from nations who never knew anything but rank materialism,
the modern young Hindu struggles in vain to understand the religion of his forefathers, and gives up the quest altogether, and becomes a hopeless wreck of an agnostic, or else,
unable to vegetate on account of the promptings of his innate religious nature, drinks carelessly of some of those different decoctions of Western materialism with an Eastern flavour, and thus fulfils the prophecy of the Shruti:
परियन्ति मूढा अन्धेनैव नीयमाना यथान्धा: |
--"Fools go staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind."
They alone escape whose spiritual nature has been touched and vivified by the life-giving touch of the "Sad-guru".
- Swami Vivekananda,
‘Reply to the Madras Address’
by prepossession and prejudice unable to grasp the meaning of the only religion whose universal adaptation is the exact shadow of the अणोरणीयान् महतो महीयान् (Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest [Katha, II. 20]) God it preaches,
groping in the dark with a standard of spiritual truth borrowed second-hand from nations who never knew anything but rank materialism,
the modern young Hindu struggles in vain to understand the religion of his forefathers, and gives up the quest altogether, and becomes a hopeless wreck of an agnostic, or else,
unable to vegetate on account of the promptings of his innate religious nature, drinks carelessly of some of those different decoctions of Western materialism with an Eastern flavour, and thus fulfils the prophecy of the Shruti:
परियन्ति मूढा अन्धेनैव नीयमाना यथान्धा: |
--"Fools go staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind."
They alone escape whose spiritual nature has been touched and vivified by the life-giving touch of the "Sad-guru".
- Swami Vivekananda,
‘Reply to the Madras Address’
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