A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"""""MAYA AND THE CONCEPTION OF GOD. 173although it may be thin and weak, an infinitely small voicewhich says, do not go outside.The two beautiful Sanskritwords for those phenomena are pravritti and nivritti,circling forward and circling inward. It is the circlingforward which is leading all our actions. Religion beginswith this circling inward. Religion begins with thisthedo not."thisdo not."WhenSpirituality begins ith this wrdo not is not there, religion has not begun. Anddo not" came ;men s ideas have grown in spite ofthe brutal fighting gods which they had.A little love got into the hearts of mankind. It wasvery small indeed, and even now it is not much greater.It was at first confined to a tribe, embracing, perhaps,,members of their own tribes these ; gods loved their tribesand each god was a tribal god, the protector of that tribe.And sometimes the members of those tribes would think ofthemselves as the descendants of that god, just as the clansare the commonin different nations think that theydescendants of someone who was the founder of the clan.There were in ancient times, and even now, some peopleclaiming to be descendants not only of these gods, but alsoof the Sun and Moon. You read in the ancient Sanskritbooks of the great heroic emperors of the solar dynasty.They were first worshippers of the Moon and Sun, andgradually came to think of themselves as descendants ofthe god of the Sun, of the Moon, and so forth. So whenthese tribal ideas began to grow there came a little love rsome slight idea of duties towards each other, a little socialorganisation, and immediately began the idea,live together without bearing and forbearing?how can weHow canone man live with another man even one without havingsome time or other to check his impulses, restrain himself,forbear from doing things which his mind would prompt