Religion is the innermost core of education. I do not mean my own or any one else's opinion about religion. The true eternal principles have to be held before the people. First of all we have to introduce the worship of the great saints. Those great-souled ones who have realised the eternal truths are to be presented before the people as the ideals to be followed - Sri Ramachandra, Sri Krishna, Mahavira, Sri Ramakrishna and others. Keep aside for the present the Vrindavan aspect of Sri Krishna and spread far and wide the worship of Sri Krishna roaring out the Gita with the voice of a lion, and bring into daily use the worship of Shankti - the Divine Mother, the source of all power. We now mostly need the ideal of the hero with the tremendous spirit of Rajas thrilling through his veins from head to foot-the hero who will dare and die to know the truth, the hero whose armour is renunciation, whose sword is wisdom. We now want the spirit of the brave warrior in the battle-field.
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Make the character of Mahavira your ideal. At the command of Ramachandra he crossed the ocean! He had no care for life or death. He was a perfect master of the senses and wonderfully sagacious. Build your life on this great ideal of personal service. Through that ideal all the other ideas will gradually manifest themselves in life. Obedience to the Guru without questioning and strict observance of Brahmacharya-this is the secret of success. As on the one hand Hanuman represents the ideal of service, so on the other he represents leonine courage, stroking the world with awe. He has not the least hesitation in sacrificing his life for the good of Rama. A supreme indifference to everything except the service of Rama. Only the carrying out of Sri Rama's behest is the one vow of his life. Such whole-hearted devotion is wanted.
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At the present time the worship of the divine play of Sri Krishna with the Gopis is not good. Playing on the flute and so on will not regenerate the country. Playing on the khol and kartal and dancing in the frenzy of the kirtana has degenerated the whole people. In trying to imitate the highest sadhana, the preliminary qualification for which is absolute purity, they have been swallowed in dire tamas. Are not drums made in the country? Are not trumpets and kettle-drums available in India? Make the boys hear the deep-toned sound of these instruments. Hearing from boyhood the sound of effeminate forms of music, the country is well-nigh converted into a country of women. The damaru and horn have to be sounded, drums are to be beaten so as to raise the deep and martial notes, and with 'Mahavira, Mahavira' on our lips and shouting 'Hara, Hara, Vyom, Vyom', the quarters are to be reverberated. The music which awakens only the softer feelings of man is to be stopped now for some time. The people are to be accustomed to hear the Dhrupad music.
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Through the thunder roll of the dignified Vedic hymns life is to be brought back into the country. In everything the austere spirit of heroic manhood should be revived. If you can build your character after such an ideal then a thousand others will follow. But take care that you do not swerve an inch from the ideal. Never lose heart. In eating, dressing or lying, in singing or playing, in enjoyment or disease, always manifest the highest moral courage. Never allow weakness to overtake your mind. Remember Mahavira, remember the Divine Mother, and you will see that all weaknes, all cowardice will vanish at once.
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The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself. But it is not selfish faith. It means faith in all because you are all. Love for yourself means love for all, love for animals, love for everything, for you are all one. It is the great faith which will make the world better. The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practised, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished. Throughout the history of mankind if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of great men and women, it is that faith in themselves. Born with the consciousness that they were to be great, they became great.
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Infinite strength is religion. Strength is goodness, weakness is sin. All sins and all evil can be summed up in that one word: weakness. It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil-doing. It is weakness that is the source of all selfishness. It is weakness that makes man injure others. Let them all know what they are, let them repeat day and night what they are: 'So'ham'. Let them suck it in with their mother's milk, this idea of strength-I am he! This is to be first heard; and then let them think of it; and out of that thought will proceed works such as the world has never seen.
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Tell the truth boldly. All truth is eternal. Truth is the nature of all souls. And here is the test of truth: anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison. There is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all knowledge. Truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating. Go back to your Upanishads, the shining, the strengthening, the bright philosophy. Take up this philosophy. The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence. The truths of the Upanishads are before you. Take them up, live up to them and the salvation of India will be at hand.
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Physical weakness is the cause of at least one-third of our miseries. We are lazy; we cannot combine. We speak of many things parrot-like but never do them. Speaking and not doing has become a habit with us. What is the cause? Physical weakness. This sort of weak brain is not able to do anything. We must strengthen it. First of all our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends, that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita. You will understand Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little stronger. You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of Krishna better with a little strong blood in you. You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman, when your feet and you feel yourselves as men.
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Strength, strength is what the Upanishads speak to me from every page. It is the only literature in the world, where you find the word "Abhih", 'Fearless', used again and again. In no other scripture in the world is this adjective applied either to God or man. And in my mind rises from the past the vision of the great emperor of the West, Alexander the Great, and I see as it were in a picture the great monarch standing on the banks of the Indus, talking to one of our sannyasins in the forest: the old man he was talking to, perhaps naked, stark naked, sitting upon a block of stone, and the Emperor astonished at his wisdom, tempting him with gold and honour, to come over the Greece. And this man smiles at his gold and smiles at his temptations, and refuses. And then the emperor standing in his authority as Emperor says, 'I will kill you if you do not come', and the man bursts into a laugh, and says, 'You never told such a falsehood in your life as you tell just now. Who can kill me? For I am spirit unborn and undecaying.' That is strength!...
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There are thousands to weaken us, and of stories we have had enough. Therefore, my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, every time strength. And the Upanishads are the great mines of strength. There in lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world. The whole world can be vivified, made strong, energised through them. They will call with trumpet voice upon the weak, the miserable and the down-trodden of all races, all creeds and all sects to stand on their feet and be free. Freedom, physical freedom, mental freedom and spiritual freedom are the watchwords of the Upanishads.
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But no scriptures can make us religious. We may study all the books that are in the world, yet we may not understand a word of religion or of God. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves. You cannot hope to make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books. You cannot satisfy my curiosity to see a country by showing me a map. Maps can only create curiosity in us to get more perfect knowledge. Beyond that they have no value whatever. Temples and churches, books and forms are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the spiritual child strong enough to take the higher steps. Religion is not in doctrines or dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation. It is being and becoming. It is realisation.
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We may be the most intellectual people the world ever saw and yet we may not come to God at all. On the other hand, irreligious men have been produced from the most intellectual training. It is one of the evils of western civilization-intellectual education alone without taking care of the heart. It only makes men ten times more selfish. When heart be followed. It is the heart which takes one to the highest plane, which intellect can never reach. It goes beyond the intellect and reaches what is called inspiration. Always cultivate the heart. Through the heart the Lord speaks.
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The intensest love that humanity has ever known has come from religion. The noblest words of peace that the world has ever heard have come from men of the religious plane. At the same time the bitterest denunciation that the world has ever known has been uttered by religious men. Each religion brings out its own doctrines and insists upon them as being the only true ones. Some will even draw the sword to compel others to believe as they do. This is not through wickedness, but through a particular disease of the human mind called fanaticism. Yet out of this strife and struggle, this hatred and jealousy of religions and sects, there have risen from time to time potent voices proclaiming peace and harmony.
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The time was ripe for one to be born who would see in every sect the same spirit working: the same God: one who would see God in every being, one whose heart would weep for the poor, for the weak, for the downtrodden, and at the same time whose grand brilliant intellect would harmonise all conflicting sects not only in India but also outside India; and bring a marvellous harmony, the universal religion, into existence. Such a man was born and I had the good fortune to sit at his feet for years. I learned from my Master the wonderful truth that the religions of the world are not contradictory of antagonistic. They are but various phases of one eternal religion. Sri Ramakrishna never spoke a harsh word against anyone. So beautifully tolerant was he that every sect thought that he belonged to it. He loved every one; to him all religions were true. His whole life was spent in breaking down the barriers of sectarianism and dogma.
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Let our watchword then be acceptance and not exclusion. Not only toleration, for so-called toleration is often blasphemy. Toleration means that I think that you are wrong and I am just allowing you to live. Is it not blasphemy to think that you and I are allowing others to live? I accept all religions that were in the past and worship them all. I worship God with every one of them, in whatever form they worship Him. I shall go to the mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian's church and kneel before the crucifix. I shall enter the Buddhistic temple, where I shall take refuge in Buddha and in his Law. I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the Light which enlightens the heart of everyone.
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Not only shall I do all these but I shall keep my heart open for all that may come in the future. Is God's book finished? Or is it still a continuous revelation going on? It is a marvellous book-these spiritual revelations of the world. The Bible, the Vedas, the Koran and all other sacred books are but so many pages, and an infinite number of pages remain yet to be unfolded. Let us take in all that has been in the past, enjoy the light of the present and open every window of the heart for all that will come in the future. Salutation to all the prophets of the past, to all the great ones of the present and to all that are to come in the future...........!!!!!!
