"... and they lived happily ever after ... "

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
"... and they lived happily ever after..."
I have taken some paragraphs from Swami Vivekananda's Chicago Address. I would request all to please read.

WHY WE DISAGREE (15th September, 1893)

I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, "Let us cease from abusing each other", and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.

But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it eith an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well. "Where are you from?" "I am from the sea." "The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?" and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other. "My friend", said the frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea with your little well?" Then the frog took another leap and asked, "Is your sea so big?" "What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well" "Well, then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out."

That has been the difficulty all the while.

I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. I have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that, in future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.

He added,
"The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant."

I keep reading the writings of Munner, infidel and others.
My personal opinion is all of us love our religion very dearly. And we are good human beings as well but at the same time provocated by religious remarks.


On this lovely day, can the two wonderful people join hands and take pride in calling ourselves Indian, the most secular, tolerant and a country of rich cultural heritage and end this battle of words.
I think we are not portraying the right image of ourselves to the world. We love our religions but we do definitely respect other religions as well.


6:08:05 AM
Posted By Sanjib Chowdhury Comments (1) Society
Comments
K.Venugopal Wednesday, February 14, 2007 12:52:02 PM
Congratulations, Sanjib Chowdhury, for quoting Swami Vivekananda. Swamiji's words are always a fresh whiff of wind. The seed not becoming anything other than a fulfillment of its destiny is a thought I have to meditate on to pursue its deeper significance.Not just you, I think many readers must be disturbed about the ugly verbal brawl that has broken out over religion on NDTV blogsphere. Since I am accused by Mr. Muneerudeen as having insulted his Prophet and I have interpreted his charge against me as proof of the blanket ban that Islam has imposed against questioning any aspect of Mohammad or his work, it is inevitable that the brawl would continue and may even get worse as for me questioning religion is the very basis of understanding religion and unraveling our divinity whereas for Muneer it appears that questioning religion is an irreligious activity and stepping out of bounds expected of a slave.