A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"THE MISSION OF THE VEDANTA. 439behind those talks of frothynonsense of the Christianreligious sects saying that man was a fallen and hopelesslyfallej. sinner? There inside the national hearts of bothEurope and America resides the tremendous power of themen s faith in themselves. An English boy will tell youI am an Englishman, and I will do anything."TheAmerican boy will tellyou the same, and so will everyEuropean boy. Can our boys say the same thing here ?^fo, not evefi the boys fathers. We have lost faith inourselves. Therefore, to preach^the Advaita aspect of theVedanta is necessary to rouse up the hearts of men, toshow them the glory of their souls. It is, therefore, thatI preach this Advaita, and I do so not on sectarian butupon universal and widely acceptable grounds.It is easy to find out the way of reconciliation thatwill not hurt the dualist or the qualified monist. There isnot one system in India which does not hold the doctrinethat God is within, that divinity resides within all things.Every one of our Vedantic systems admits that all purity,and perfection and strength are in the soul already.According to some this perfection sometimes becomes, asit were, contracted, and at other times it becomes expandedagain. Yet it is there. According to the Advaita it neithercontracts nor expands, but becomes hidden and uncoverednow and again. Pretty much the same thing in effect.The one may be a more logical statement than the other,but as to the result, the practical conclusions, both areabout the same ;and this is the one central idea which theworld stands in need of, and nowhere is the want morefelt than in this, our own motherland. Aye, my friends,*I must tell you a few harsh words. I read in the newspapers,when one of our poor fellows is murdered orilltreated by an Englishman, how the howls goall over the