The enclosed teaching of Swami Vivekananda has been taken from the book: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 4.
There is death, you know, inevitable death, in water, in air, in the palace, in the prison – death everywhere.
What makes you fearless? When you have realised what you are — that infinite spirit, deathless, birthless. Him no fire can burn, no instrument kill, no poison hurt. Not theory, mind you. Not reading books. . . . [Not parroting.]
My old Master used to say, “It is all very good to teach the parrot to say, ‘Lord, Lord, Lord’ all the time; but let the cat come and take hold of its neck, it forgets all about it” [You may] pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are, [but] unless you realise the soul there is no freedom.
Not talking, theorising, argumentation, but realisation. That I call practical religion.
MORAL: Many people think that by daily performing pujas and rituals, by putting the tilak on the forehead, by draping on the orange robe, by blindly following historical customs (without evaluating whether they are right or wrong) they have become deeply religious. This as Swami Vivekananda has explained is empty and fake religiosity.
Without an accompanying inner transformation and moral purification, these externalities of religion are useless. Our position is reduced to that of a parrot who repeats Rama, Rama endlessly without ever attaining a vision of Lord Rama. It is only when we utilize the external observances of religion to purify our inner nature that we can ascend to a higher consciousness and ultimately attain to God, the Sat-Chit-Ananda Consciousness.
Religion thus is in Realization. When we put a strong effort to bring Divinity into our character, into our thoughts, words and deeds, only then are we really religious.
The above excerpt of Swamiji’s teaching was provided to us by the Instagram Page swamivivekananda_inspires. They have a Facebook page as well, which devotees can follow.
