A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

CHRIST, THE MESSENGER.*gT HE wave rises on the ocean there is a hollow. ; Again\jy another wave rises, perhaps, bigger than the former,to fill down again ; similarly, again to rise drivingonward. In the march of events, we notice the rise andthe fall. And we generally look towards the rise, forgetting the fall. Both are necessary. Both are great.This is the nature of the universe. Whether in theworld of our thoughts, the world of our relations, in society,or in our spiritual affairs, the same movement of succession,of rises and fal^s^is going on. Hence the liberal ideals,great predominances in the march of events, are marshalled ahead, to sink down, as it were, to digest, to ruminate,over the past; to adjust, to conserve, to gather strengthfor a riseonce more and a bigger rise.The history of nations, also, has been like that. Thegreat soul, the Messenger we are to study this afternoon,came at a period of the history of his race which we mayYou catch only little bits ofwell designate as a greatfall. tglimpses here and there of the stray records that havebeen kept of his sayings and doings ; for, verily it has beensaid well that the doings and sayings of that great soulwould fill the world ifthey had been all written down.And these eighteen months of his ministry were like onecompressed, concentrated age, which it has taken ninetaenhundred years to unfold, and who knows how longyet it will take.*Notes from a lecture delivered by Swami Vivekananda at LosAngles, California, in 1900.