A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

We"]94 MAYA AND FREEDOM.ghastly battlefield of Maya is changed into something else,into something more beautiful, better.<r need notcurse Nature, we need not say that the world is horrible, rwe need not sayit is all vain, we need not weep or wail.As soon as you understand the voice you see the reasonwhy this struggle should be here, this fight, this competition, this difficulty, this cruelty, these little pleasures andO j y S that they are in the nature of things, because weare going towards the voice, to attain which we are called,whether we know it or not. All human life, therefore, isstrugglingto manifest this freedom, all Nature, the Sun ismoving towards the goal, so is the Earth circling round theSun, so is the Moon circling round the Earth. For thatgoal the planet is moving, and the air is blowing. Forthat goal the sun is shining and so is the moon, for thatgoal the wind is blowing and thunder is crashing, for thatgoal death is stalking about." They are all strugglingtowards that. The saint is going that way ;he cannothelp it ;it is no glory to him. So is the sinner. Themost charitable man is going towards that voice straight,he cannot stop so is the most; hopeless miser goingtowards the same destination ;the greatest worker of goodhas the same voice in him, he cannot resist it,he must gotowards the voice. So is the most arrant idler. Onestumbles more than another, and he who stumbles morewe call weak, he who stumbles less we call good. Goodand bad are never two different things, theyare one andthe same; the difference is not one of kind, but of degree.Now,if the manifestation of this power of freedom isreally working the whole Universe applying that to religion, our special study we find it has been the one assertion throughout. Take the lowest form of religion, wherethere is a departed ancestor, or some very furious, very