A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"344 BHAKTI OR DEVOTION*external and the internal sides of the same wave. Assuch, names have been exalted and worshippedall over theworld ; consciously or unconsciously, man found the g\ryof names.Again, we find that, in many different religions, holyThey worship Krishna,personages have been worshipped.they worship Buddha, they worship Jesus, and so forth.Then there is the worship of saints : hundreds of^hem havebeen worshippedall over the world, and why not ? Thevibration of light is everywhere. The owl sees it in the dark.That shows it is there. But man cannot see it there. Forthe man, that vibration is only visible in the lamp, in thesun, in the moon. God is omnipresent ;He is manifestingHimself in every being, but for men, He is only visible,recognizable, in man. When His light, His presence, Hisspirit, shines through the human face divine, then and thenalone, can man understand Him. Thus, man has been worshipping God through men all the time, and must have so toworship, as long as he is a man. He may cry against it, struggle against it,but as soon as he attempts to realize God, hewill find the constitutional necessity of thinking of God as aman. So, we find that these are the three primary pointswhich we have in the worship of God, in almost everyreligion forms, or symbols; names God-men. All; religionshave these, but then you find that they want to fight witheach other. One says, My name is the only name, and notyours, and my form is the only form, and not yours, andmy God-men are the only God -men in the world, and yoursare simply myths."In modern times, the Christianclergymen have become a little kinder ; so, they say that,in all these older religions, the different forms of worshipwere f oreshadowings of what was going to happen which,;of course, is the only true form their own. God tested