A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

452 THE SAGES OF INDIA.that the Vedanta only can be the universalVreligion, thatit is already the existing universal religion in the world,because it teaches principles and not persons. No religionbuilt upon a jjerson can be taken up as a typ by all theraces of mankind.In our own country we find that therehave been so many grand personages ;in each little citywe find that so many hundreds of persons are .taken upas types ty the different minds in that one city. How canit be possible that one person, as Mahomirted or Buddhaor Christ, can be taken up as the one type for the wholeworld ? Nay, that the whole of morality and ethics andspirituality and religion will be true only from the sanctionof that one person, and one person alone ? Now the"Vedantic religion does not require any such personalauthority; its sanction is* the eternal nature of man, itsethics are based upon the eternal spiritual solidarity ofman, already existing, already attained and not to beattained. On the other hand, from the very earliest times,our sages have been feeling conscious of this fact that thevast majority of mankind require a person. They musthave a personal God in some form or other. The veryBuddha who declared against the existence of a PersonalGod had not died fifty years before his disciples manufactured a Personal God out f him. This Personal God isand at the same time we know that instead ofnecessary,and better than vain imaginations of a Personal God, whichin ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are unworthy ofhuman worship, we have in this world, living and walkingin our midst, living Gods now and then. These are moreworthy of worship than any imaginary God, any creationof our imaginations, that is to say, any idea of God whichwe can make. Sree Krishna is much greater than anyideal of God you or I can make. Buddha is a much higher