Bhaskar
11-17-2005, 03:57 PM
Accept not a religion because it is the oldest, its being the oldest is no proof of its being the true one. Sometimes the oldest houses ought to be pulled down and the oldest clothes must be changed. The latest innovation, if it can stand the test of reason, is as good as the fresh rose bedecked with sparkling dew. Accept not a religion because it is the latest. The latest things are not always the best, not having stood the test of time. Accept not a religion on the ground of its being believed in by a vast majority of mankind, because the vast majority of mankind believes practically in the religion of Satan, in the religion of ignorance. There was a time when the vast majority of mankind believed in slavery, but that could be no proof of slavery being a proper institution. Believe not in a religion on the ground of its being believed in by the chosen few. Sometimes the small minority that accepts a religion is in darkness, misled. Accept not a religion because it comes from a great ascetic, from a man who has renounced everything; because we see that there are many ascetics, men who have renounced every thing, and yet they know nothing, they are veritable fanatics. Accept not a religion because it comes from princes or kings, kings are often enough spiritually poor. Accept not a religion because it comes from a person whose character was the highest; oftentimes people of the grandest character have failed in expounding the truth. A manŐs digestive power may be exceptionally strong and yet he may not know anything about the process of assimilation. Here is a painter. He gives you a lovely, exquisite, splendid work of art, and yet the painter may be the ugliest man in the world. There are people who are very ugly and yet they promulgate beautiful truths. Socrates was such a man. There was Sir Francis Bacon, not a very moral man, not of over-fine character and yet he gave to the world "Novum Organum", and was the first to teach Inductive Logic; his philosophy was sublime. Believe not in a religion because it comes from a very famous man. Sir Isaac Newton is very famous, and yet his emissory theory of light is wrong, his rate or proportion at which a flowing quantity increases its magnitude, method of fluxions (Newtonian calculus) does not come up to the Differential System of Liebnitz. Accept a thing and believe in a religion on its own merits. Examine it yourself. Sift it. Sell not your liberty to Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad or Krishna. If Buddha taught that way or Christ taught this way, or if Mohammad taught in some other way, it was all good and all right for them; they lived in other times. They mastered their problems; they judged by their own intellects; it was so grand of them. But you are living today; you shall have to judge and scrutinize and examine matters for yourselves. Be free, free to look at everything by your own light. If your ancestors believed in a particular religion, it was perhaps very good for them to believe in that, but now your salvation is your own business, your redemption is not the business of your ancestors. They believed in a particular religion which may or may not have saved them, but you have to work out your own emancipation. Whatever comes before you, examine it per se, examine it by yourself, not giving up your freedom. To your ancestors only one particular religion may have been shown; to you all sorts of truths, all sorts of religions, all sorts of philosophies, all sorts of sciences are being demonstrated. If the religion of your ancestors is yours on the ground of its being laid before you, so is the religion of Buddhism yours on the ground of its being placed before you, so is Vedanta yours on the ground of its being put before you.
- Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906)
(www.ramatirtha.org (http://www.ramatirtha.org))
- Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906)
(www.ramatirtha.org (http://www.ramatirtha.org))