A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"144 THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL.But for us poor householders we must all have some sortof fear, we will have ceremonies, and so on.iDualistic ideas have ruled the world long enough, andthis is the result. Why not make a new experiment ? Itmay take millions of years perhaps for all minds to receiveit, but why not begin now ? If we have told it to twentypersons in our lives, we have done a great work.Then there is generally one great idea in India whichmilitates against it. It is this. It is all very well to say,.I am the Pure, the Blessed," but I cannot show it alwaysin my life. That is true ; the ideal is always very hard.Every child that is born sees the sky over-head very faraway, but is that any reason why we should not striketowards the sky ? Would it mend matters tc-go*towardssuperstition ? If we cannot get nectar, would it mendmatters for us to drink poison? Would it be any help forus because we cannot realise truth immediately to go intodarkness and weakness and superstition ?I have no objection to dualism inmany of its forms.I like most of them, but I have objections to every form ofteaching which inculcates weakness. That is the onequestion I put to every one, man, woman or child, whenthey are in training, physical, mental or spiritual. Thequestion is Are you : strong? Do you feel strength ? forI know it is truth alone that gives strength. I know thattruth alone gives life, and nothing but going towards reality will make us strong, and none will reach truth untilthey are strong. Every system, therefore, which weakensthe mind, weakens the brain, makes one superstitious,makes one mope in darkness, always desiring allsorts ofmorbid impossibilities and mysteries and superstitions ;those, therefore, I do not like, because their effect is