LETTER NO.:39
Dear……………..,*
…It has been for the good of India that religious
preaching in the West has been and will be done. It has ever been my conviction
that we shall not be able to rise unless the Western people come to our help.
In this country no appreciation of merit can yet be found, no financial
strength, and what is most lamentable of all, there is not a bit of
practicality.
There are many things to be done, but means are
wanting in this country. We have brains, but no hands. We have the doctrine of
Vedanta, but we have not the power to reduce it into practice. In our books
there is the doctrine of universal equality, but in work we make great
distinctions. It was in India that unselfish and disinterested work of the most
exalted type was preached but in practice we are awfully cruel, awfully
heartless — unable to think of anything besides our own mass-of-flesh bodies.
Yet it is only through the present state of things
that it is possible to proceed to work. There is no other way. Everyone has the
power to judge of good and evil, but he is the hero who undaunted by the waves
of Samsâra — which is full of errors, delusions, and miseries — with one hand
wipes the tears, and with the other, unshaken, shows the path of deliverance.
On the one hand there is the conservative society, like a mass of inert matter;
on the other the restless, impatient, fire-darting reformer; the way to good
lies between the two. I heard in Japan that it was the belief of the girls of
that country that their dolls would be animated if they were loved with all their
heart. The Japanese girl never breaks her doll. O you of great fortune! I too believe that India will awake again if
anyone could love with all his heart the people of the country — bereft of the
grace of affluence, of blasted fortune, their discretion totally lost,
downtrodden, ever-starved, quarrelsome, and envious. Then only will India awake, when hundreds of large-hearted men and
women, giving up all desires of enjoying the luxuries of life, will long and
exert themselves to their utmost for the well-being of the millions of their
countrymen who are gradually sinking lower and lower in the vortex of
destitution and ignorance. I have experienced even in my insignificant life
that good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can conquer the world. One single
soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of
hypocrites and brutes.
Ever grateful and ever praying to the Lord for your
welfare,
VIVEKANANDA.
*[You may treat these letters as if addressed to you]
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